Postage!
by Gray Voice
Summary: Every single day, at the same exact time, she walks into the campus mail room by herself, and every single day, she walks back out without a single letter in her hands. Luka wonders if maybe she can change that. Negitoro, Luka/Miku
1. Chapter 1

_Tick-tock_, sounded the clock hanging on the mail room wall.

From behind a desk at the far end of the room, Megurine Luka was watching that clock with a much-practiced patience. It was nearing half-past four, which meant that it wouldn't be too long until her shift here was over and she could get some more time in at a practice room. She had a concert coming up soon, and she was still singing more than a few notes in her aria with what she felt wasn't quite the right intonation.

Her job in the mail room was an inconvenience to her studies, but it gave her a steady source of income, and it certainly didn't count as heavy labor. All that was required of her on a daily basis was to sort any incoming mail into its respective mailbox and to give any students with a package slip their delivery from behind her counter. It was tedious work, but at least it was simple – that was why the pay was so low, of course, but Luka had nonetheless always thought that the rate was more than fair, especially given the relatively few hours she had to put in every week.

Luka wasn't in desperate need of the money – she had gotten into The Crypton Conservatory for the Musical Arts on a very generous scholarship, and the college fund her parents had saved up was more than enough to cover for the room and board – but she still preferred to have a bit of security should she ever find something worth buying, which admittedly didn't happen all that often. At least, not to the degree at which her friends spent their earnings: Lily seemed to have an endless supply of cash to provide for her equally infinite dates, and Meiko's room was apparently never without space for another internet-ordered curiosity. Luka never understood how either one of them managed to stay out of debt, considering that their incomes were just as meager as her own, but given the frugality of her own lifestyle she figured that she didn't have all that much reason to learn of their secret anyway.

The clock on the wall kept up its work, the bigger hand slowly nearing the bottom of its descent. _Tick-tock_, it continued to call in its mechanical voice.

Though Luka was looking forward to the end of her shift, it wasn't the main event she was anticipating at the moment. She had already distributed all the letters for today into their corresponding mailboxes, and the packages for the other students to claim (including yet another one addressed to Meiko) were all lying in order, ready to be given out once requested. All her work being finished, Luka could just ride out the rest of her shift by sitting behind her desk doing absolutely nothing, which she couldn't say she minded, since she had grown so accustomed to it after all the months she had spent practicing the routine. She wasn't reserving her excitement for the point where she could leave the silence and the tedium of the mail room; no, right now she was waiting for something far more interesting to happen, just as she had waited for it yesterday and would doubtlessly wait for it tomorrow.

_Tick-tock_, the clock on the wall said as its bigger hand finally swung down to the lowest point on its face. Expectantly, Luka turned her attention to the wooden, windowed doors at the other end of the mail room.

Mere moments later, a girl with long, twin-tailed teal hair pushed open the doors and meandered over to the towering rows of mailboxes a few yards away from the entrance. She stood on her tip-toes and stretched her arm far up, reaching for one of the upper mailboxes and, with a practiced precision, quickly rotated its dial about until the steel door clicked open. Standing as tall as she possibly could, the girl peeked into the metal interior, and, upon finding it empty, promptly slammed the door shut. Hastily, she shuffled towards the exit, then stopped at the doors, where she looked back at Luka with a curiously hesitant glance. Luka shot the girl a small wave and smile, both of which she nervously returned before quickly departing, leaving the mail room once again silent and empty.

Luka gave another few small waves as the girl left, then folded her arms back on the desk. This exact routine had been played out every day for the entire past semester, perhaps only a day or two after Luka had first started taking this shift. At first, she didn't even notice the pattern – the mysterious girl had been another student checking her mail, just like anybody else. But gradually, Luka began to realize that this same girl always came in at the same exact time every single day, and for all her dedication never left with a single piece of postage. No letters, no magazines, not even a postcard; without fail, she always went away empty handed.

All Luka knew about the girl was her name and mailbox number: Hatsune Miku and 3724, respectively. She had figured out the latter after watching the girl enough times to discern which mailbox she always opened, and the former by taking that mailbox number and checking it against the mail room records. Meiko had told Luka just how creepy she thought that was, but Luka had staunchly protested: first of all, she didn't look up any of the girl's personal information, and second, she would've made the connection anyway if the girl ever had to tell Luka her mailbox number (though admittedly, given the fact that she would only do that if she had forgotten her combination, the chances of that happening were pretty slim).

But somehow, it bothered Luka that she knew so little about the teal-haired girl. She seemed so shy and timid every time Luka saw her, always checking for her mail as quickly as possible - it was like she was spending a minimal amount of time in the mail room, as if simply being there made her nervous. Lily had mentioned that she sometimes saw her hanging around a couple of blonde-haired twins, which comforted Luka considerably: the girl seemed pleasant enough, and Luka didn't like the thought of her not having any friends (a fear she had begun to form after letting her observations of the girl's shy demeanor run a little wild). But Luka still saw something so heart-wrenchingly lonely about the girl's situation, an almost poetic tragedy. She was just like Hachiko waiting for his master at the train station, ever-loyal in following through with her self-appointed duty. Granted, it was probably in the best interests of _every_ student to check their mailbox daily, but it was Miku's sheer, unerring devotion to the simple hope of mail that struck Luka as strangely romantic.

The wooden doors opened again, this time ushering in a woman with short, brown hair and a gleam in her eyes. It was Meiko, once again checking her mail while Luka was still on her shift.

"Yo, Luka!" she called, shooting the other woman a quick wave and grin. "Did my package come yet?"

"Why don't you just check for a slip in your mailbox like everybody else?" Luka asked. She never understood why Meiko seemed to think of her as her personal mail carrier. Even though she was her friend, she still had to uphold regulations.

"Fine, geez," Meiko grumbled. "I suppose you want me to fill it out, too?"

"That's what I make everyone else do."

Meiko groaned. "You know, it really wouldn't hurt to make this a bit easier for me, just once. I'd do the same for you if I worked a shift here."

"Sure, but then you wouldn't be working that shift very long," Luka replied. "I'm sorry, but I can't cut anyone that kind of favor; with no record that the package was received, it could just as easily have been lost in the mail, and that makes things harder for the people in charge. It's not like filling out the package claim is that much work, anyway."

The brunette plodded over to her mail box and opened it. "Well, it just gets tedious after you've done it so many times. Oh, it _did_ come!" With a new-found giddiness, she pulled out a small blue slip of paper from her mailbox, then hopped over to Luka's desk after slamming the mailbox door back shut.

"You seem especially excited about this one," Luka remarked.

"Of course I am!" Meiko exclaimed as she began filling out the paper as quickly as she could. "You won't _believe_ what I found this time - you know that painting with all the melting clocks, right?"

"Sure, Dalí."

Meiko's grin seemed to stretch past her cheeks. "Well, I found this clock online that's _just_ like that! Like, it looks like it's melting or something, and you have to hang it off a shelf or a table because it's all bent in the middle - seriously, it's just so _cool_. You don't know how hard it was to wait the couple of days it took to get here."

"No, I really don't," Luka said dryly.

"Okay, fine, so I'm exaggerating a bit," Meiko said, sliding the completed slip over to Luka. "It's just so exciting to get a delivery, you know?"

"Sure," Luka replied. She took the slip and went off behind her desk in search of the package. Quickly finding it, she carried the small cardboard box over to the counter.

"Here you go," Luka said as she set the package in front of Meiko.

"Thanks," Meiko said. "So, how's your shift been? Nothing troublesome happened, I hope?"

"Not really," Luka replied. "Somebody got a huge shipment of books in, which was a huge pain to sort away, it was so heavy. I just hope whoever ordered them picks them up before my shift – I'd really prefer to not lug that box over to the counter."

"Did your mystery girl show up again?"

"Four-thirty, like always. And she still didn't get anything, either."

Meiko shook her head. "I really don't get why that bothers you so much. It's not like anybody uses the mail for anything other than bills and packages anymore, and neither of those are hard to get if you really want them."

"I don't know," Luka said. "It's like what you said, there's just something really special about getting that physical delivery. Actually opening up and reading a letter you're holding in your hands is worlds different from clicking open an email."

"But it's not very convenient to send them anymore, is the thing," Meiko said. "I don't know how you find the time to hand-write all those letters to your parents you keep making. You'd get more studying in if you'd just use email."

"True," Luka conceded, "but I still think it's worth it."

She knew hand-writing her correspondence with her parents took longer than some might prefer, the speed at which she wrote and edited on paper paling in comparison to that which she was capable of with a text box and keyboard, but the simple charm of sealing up the message in an envelope and dropping it off in a mailbox more than made up for it. The antiquity of the act held a special, almost incommunicable meaning for her: it was somehow more personal and heartfelt to speak through pen and paper instead of through electronic signals and a series of punched buttons. But maybe even more precious was the joy of getting that physical, material response, of peaking inside her own mailbox to discover a message sent back for her to read. Actually being able to see that envelope when she checked her mail made the reply more real, somehow, the surprise of finding it more concrete than that of an alert on an email client. The rarity of the responses made them even more meaningful, since it always meant that finding one was the slightest bit unexpected, like getting a new present a couple of days after your birthday. It was that exact feeling that Luka wished the teal-haired girl could have, even once, and she pitied her deeply for how repeatedly it was denied to her.

"Well, whatever," Meiko said. "It's still no reason to worry about that girl so much."

"But every time she walks in here, she just looks so lonely," Luka said. "Not to mention a bit anxious. It makes me wonder about her, what she's thinking about."

"I'm sure she has friends, if that's what's bothering you," Meiko said. "And you're starting to sound like a stalker again."

"I am not!" Luka protested. "It's not stalking to feel sorry for someone you don't know."

"Maybe, but I still say using the mail roster to find out her name crosses some kind of line."

"I told you already, that was just to give her some identity, nothing else. I thought it was a bit degrading to know her as just 'The Four-Thirty Mail Girl.'"

"I'm just saying, if you want to know more about her, you could try actually_ talking_ to her."

"But she seems so shy – I'm a little worried if I just spoke to her out of the blue she'd be frightened off."

Meiko sighed. "Well, at least I know you value your job enough not to read her mail or anything. I mean, if she ever got any." She gathered up the cardboard box and made for the door. "I'll see you later, then."

"See you," Luka replied as Meiko left the room. She refolded her arms over the counter and looked back up at the clock on the wall, wondering if it would be much longer before her shift ended.

_Tick-tock_, the clock said, eager to resume its long monologue now that some empty space had been presented to it. Patiently, Luka granted it the opportunity.

* * *

"I'm still not getting it quite right," Luka sighed as she leaned back against the nearby wall. "All those minor sixths in the melody keep tripping me up. Honestly, I feel like I'm a first year again."

"C'mon Luka, you'll get it down," Lily said, giving the pink-haired woman a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I mean, you still have a week before you perform, right?"

"Three days," Luka said.

"Well, that's still plenty of time. Don't stress yourself out about this." Lily brushed a strand of her golden hair out of her face and stood up, grabbing another can of beer from the nearby mini-fridge. The appliance, despite its minuteness, managed to take up a lot of space in the small dorm room, but Luka didn't mind letting Lily keep it there. Even though it was mostly full of alcohol, Lily was plenty willing to share the space inside with Luka, who was thrilled to be able to have a cold soda in the evenings. Every time Luka tried to thank Lily for that, she always dismissed it – she would just say that it was only fair, considering it was Luka's room too.

"One more for me, too?" Meiko called from her own seat on the floor.

Lily nodded and tossed her a can, then held up another in Luka's direction, giving it an encouraging shake. "You want one, Luka? It'd help you calm down about this, I guarantee it."

"I'd rather start when I _really_ need it, thanks," Luka replied.

The blonde shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said as she closed the fridge door and sat back down. "But you don't know what you're missing."

"I've seen you in the morning enough times to know _exactly_ what I'm missing."

"Ah, Lily's just irresponsible with her liquor is all," Meiko said. "If you drink more carefully like me, you'll be fine."

Luka chuckled quietly. "Right. Sure." It was a pretty big stretch to call Meiko's drinking "careful."

"Hey, if she doesn't want any booze, that's fine. Leaves more for me, you know?" Lily cracked open her can with a loud, satisfying _snap_ and took a long swig. "Although, it really would be good if you found some better way to unwind, Luka. I can't stand seeing you stretched so thin all the time."

"You don't have to worry about me," Luka said dismissively. "I'm not as busy as either of you, and you're both doing fine."

"Well, I've got a job and classes, sure," Meiko said, "but honestly Luka, how can you say that? I mean, how many clubs did you join this semester?"

"Four," Luka said. "But, I mean, I'm planning on dropping out of one or two."

"But that's on top of classes and private lessons," Lily pointed out.

"Didn't you say your workload for those was getting pretty heavy?" Meiko asked.

"I guess I did," Luka admitted. It was true that now she was expected to devote more and more time to her studies and practicing, if only to meet the growing expectations of her professors, and she couldn't really dismiss the weight all that was piling up on her shoulders. She had ways of making things easier, though; for example, right now she was trying her best not to think about the fact that her choir had a concert coming up in a week, which was making her considerably more comfortable with the fact that she had a music history paper due in two days. Of course, her upcoming music theory test wouldn't leave her head, and she couldn't say she was looking forward to reviewing the rather haphazard notes she'd been taking lately.

She finally sighed in defeat. "All right. So maybe I'm a little stressed. But it's not like I'm overwhelmed or anything."

Lily suddenly snapped her fingers. "I got it!" she cried. "I should set you up with someone! That ought to take your mind off things for a while."

"Really?" Luka asked, unamused.

"C'mon, Lily, that's your answer for everything," Meiko said. "Remember when I found out my dog back home died? You said I should just get a one-night stand and I'd feel better."

"Well, what can I say, it works for me," Lily replied, shrugging. "Oh, and by the way, Luka, would you mind making yourself scarce around midnight tonight? I'm seeing that girl from yesterday again, and I've got a feeling things are gonna go pretty well tonight, know what I mean?"

Luka groaned. "Fine. I needed to spend some time in the library anyway." She knew she should be used to these little surprises from Lily by now, but she still couldn't help but get frustrated by the sheer number of times that it came up.

"Thanks, Luka, you're the best!" Lily said, grinning. "I'll ask her if she has a friend, all right?"

"I really don't see how a relationship would make me _less_ stressed, Lily. I'm busy enough without a significant other to look after."

Lily gave a loud laugh. "You make it sound like a chore! Trust me, the benefits outweigh the costs by a long shot."

"Funny, I always thought those benefits came with _age_," Meiko said dryly.

"Hey, a girl's allowed to shop around, isn't she? Besides, ''tis better to have loved and lost', right?"

"Well, in any case, a blind date doesn't really seem right for Luka." Meiko took a sip of her beer, when suddenly her face lit up with inspiration. "Wait! Why don't you hook up with that Four-Thirty Mail Girl you keep going on about?"

"Wha –?" Luka gasped out in shock.

"Whoa, that's actually a really good idea!" Lily said. "I mean, you do keep talking about how you want to know more about her."

"But _date_ her?"

"It'd kill two birds with one stone."

"I told you, I'm not looking for a relationship," Luka asserted. She paused, briefly contemplating her friends' rapid assumptions. "But, you do have a point. I would like to get to know her. To be honest, I think it'd be nice just to meet new people."

"So just talk to her the next time she comes to the mail room," Meiko said. "Take her to dinner or something, it'll be great!"

"But, that's so unprofessional," Luka said. "I can't just ask people to hang out while I'm at work, especially people I don't know."

"Sorry Meiko, but she's right," Lily said. "Once, when I was working as a waitress a few years ago, I tried flirting with a customer after bringing her the check. Not only did I get turned down, I almost lost my job." She shook her head and took another swig of beer. "Mistake I learned from fast."

"Well then, what's Luka supposed to do?" Meiko said, a bit frustrated. "Just hope to run into her out on the campus somewhere?"

"It's a lot safer than the other options, trust me."

"Wait," Luka said, a thought suddenly ringing inside her. "Why don't I just write her a letter?"

Lily and Meiko both stared blankly at her a long moment.

"Really?" Meiko finally said. "You're going to use your _job_ to try to meet her?"

"Well, why not?" Luka asked.

Meiko groaned angrily. "The only reason you even know her _name_ is because you looked her up on the mailing records, and now you want to use that personal information to _contact_ her? Honestly, tell me how that's not stalking."

"It's not like I'm going to harass her or anything," Luka protested. "I just happen to know her mailbox number, that's all. What's wrong with using it?"

"Would you _call_ her if you just 'happened' to have her phone number?"

Luka sighed. "It's not just for me, you know. I mean, if I wrote her, she'd finally have something in her mailbox the next time she checks it. I think I'm more interested in seeing that happen than in anything else, really."

"I should've known you'd have noble intentions like that," Lily said, grinning. "You're always so chivalrous, Luka. It's a great way to pick up girls, you should keep at it."

"It still sounds a bit shady to me," Meiko mumbled.

"So then," Lily said, "why don't you write this letter tonight and send it off tomorrow morning? Since it's just campus mail, it'd probably be in her mailbox the next time she checks it. Then, bam! You can talk to her for real!"

Luka was about to agree, but stopped herself as a new realization suddenly hit her. "Wait a second," she said. "I can't do that."

"Why not?" Lily asked, puzzled.

"She can't know I mailed her a letter!" Luka said. "I mean, she already knows that I see her check her mail everyday. If she finds out I'm the sender, she'll think I just sent it out of pity."

"Or that you're stalking her," Meiko said. "But really, _isn't_ it just out of pity?"

"Well... partly, yes," Luka admitted. "But she can't know that. It'd be like getting a consolation prize after losing a game a hundred times, you know? There wouldn't be anything special about it anymore."

"But it's not like she knows your name or address," Lily pointed out.

"She'll figure it out if we meet, though," Luka said. "Or if she goes to one of my concerts or something."

Lily murmured agreement and took another few sips of her beer, thinking. "Well, why don't you use a fake name, then?" she suggested. "You can just keep yourselves anonymous for this. I mean, people do anonymous email exchanges."

"That's even creepier than before," Meiko said.

"Sorry Lily, but Meiko's right," Luka said. "This girl seems really timid, and if she thinks a stranger got ahold of her mailbox number she'll be especially terrified. What I really need is some excuse to contact her that I can still hide behind, something more... official, I guess."

There was a brief silence, then Lily suddenly snapped her fingers.

"That's it!" she cried. "You need to make an organization!"

"I... need to found a company?" Luka asked, completely perplexed.

"No, Luka, I mean a _student_ organization, a club. You'd just make an unofficial club that writes people letters!"

Luka continued to stare at the blonde in confusion. "A… letter-writing club? One that sends letters to random people?"

"No, just people on their mailing list," Lily said knowingly. "And your Four-Thirty Mail Girl's mailbox number somehow managed to get on that list," she added with a wink.

"So, let me get this straight," Meiko said. "You're going to make up a whole club – one that supposedly got this girl's mailing address,_ purely_ on accident – just to send one letter anonymously? That's not just creepy, that's ridiculous."

"But, it could work, couldn't it?" Luka said. "She'd probably wonder why she'd never heard of this group or why no one else she knows got any letters from them, but couldn't we explain that by saying it's a new club?"

"I'd buy it," Lily said.

"It just sounds like a difficult facade to keep up," Meiko said. "Sooner or later, she'll find out there is no 'letter-writing club.' That's just how lies are – they all get found out eventually."

"I won't send her letters every day or anything," Luka countered. "It'll just be this once, and then, who knows, maybe I'll be able to talk to her somewhere else. But all I'd really like is to see her get _one_ letter, to not walk out of that mail room empty-handed for once."

Meiko sighed. "Well, when you put it like that, it's hard to say you're actually being some kind of creep. Just, don't ask her anything weird in your letter, okay?"

"Why don't I help with writing that?" Lily offered. "A bit of my expertise wouldn't hurt, after all."

"That'd definitely let something weird get in," Meiko muttered.

"Sounds great," Luka said, smiling.

"And that settles it!" Lily said merrily before taking a celebratory swig of her beer. "C'mon Meiko, you too."

The brunette sighed. "Fine," she said, then took a long gulp of her drink. "I still can't say I'm totally behind this, though. Really, the only reason I'm even comfortable with it is that I know you won't do anything questionable."

"Thanks, Meiko," Luka said. "I think." She didn't really understand her friend's suspicion, since she truly didn't hold any impure intentions. All she wanted was to make that poor girl's waiting worthwhile, even for just one day, to let her open her mailbox and discover the gift of an envelope. But, if Luka managed to learn a bit more about the mysterious girl in the process, that would be okay, too.

"It'll go fine, Meiko, I'll make sure of that," Lily said, setting her now-empty can of beer aside. "The hardest part for Luka now is how she's going to set up a fake club in a day."

"Actually," Luka said contemplatively, "I have an idea about that..."

* * *

A/N: So, this was just a random plot that popped into my head one day after a random visit to my own mail room. I promise I won't abandon my other story, of course, but I hope this proves to be something a bit more fun!


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm sorry, you want me to help with _what_?"

The tall young man standing in front of Luka eyed her with an expression one usually reserved for particularly dim responses from game show contestants, and it was all she could do to not immediately abandon her pursuits as she endured its sharp befuddlement. There was a certain poise that the man held himself with that only made his stare stronger, a sort of power in the very way he stood – Luka always thought that, had he never studied the violin, the guy could have made a top-notch opera singer.

"C'mon, Gakupo," Luka persisted. "I'm not asking very much of you."

"You're asking me to let you use the club room as a return address for a letter to a girl neither of us knows on the pretense that it's actually from a club that doesn't exist. I'd say that's actually asking quite a bit from me."

"But it's not like _you'd_ be directly involved..."

"Yes, I would, actually," Gakupo countered. "If this girl became suspicious about why she got a mysterious letter in the mail, all she'd have to do would be to look at that return address, check the room number against the registry of clubs, find 'Calligraphy,' march in here asking for the president, and then ask me for my name when I stand up in the vain hope that she's a new member. Then, she reports me for sending strange letters, and who knows what could come after that."

Luka rolled her eyes. "You don't really think you could get in trouble for this, do you?"

"I don't know, it just reeks of some broken rule."

"Well, even if you _could_, it's not as if the return address would immediately lead back to you. We're not the only club that uses this room, you know."

"So why couldn't you have asked one of _them_ to sponsor this absurd scheme of yours?" Gakupo asked, frustrated.

"Because you're the only club leader who I thought might take me seriously with this," Luka said. "Besides, letter-writing and calligraphy aren't _that_ different..."

"They're different in that one is the activity of a registered club and the other is not," Gakupo said. "Might I also add that the matter of registration is a bit of an obstacle to what you have planned? What do you intend to do if your unmet recipient wants to investigate this 'Letter-Writing Club' and then inevitably discovers no such club to be officially recognized?"

"You're acting like every single student group on campus has to be sanctioned by the school officials to operate. There are plenty that are just too small or too new to be _worth_ registering - why can't that be the case with this club?"

"I think you're still forgetting the part where your penpal-to-be could just follow the letter back here."

"And I think _you're_ forgetting the part where no person in their right mind would actually go to all that trouble."

"What do you mean? _I _would."

"My point exactly," Luka said. "Now come _on_, Gakupo, please? All you have to do is give me the okay on this, and you'll never hear about it again. I _promise_."

Gakupo sighed and brushed a bit of his long, purple hair out of his face. "I'm sorry, Luka, but I just don't like how risky this feels. I really think I'd rather not get involved."

Luka couldn't say she wasn't expecting this kind of resistance. The violinist was stubborn and generally quite reluctant to overstep what he saw as his boundaries, but nevertheless she didn't have any other club leaders who she knew so well; she was certain anyone who didn't know her would dismiss the idea completely. Still, Luka didn't see reason to give up just yet. If nothing else, Gakupo had actually bothered to argue with her about Operation Letter-Writing Club, which was very likely a step up from most anybody else.

So, she didn't let this initial disagreement discourage her. She still had yet to bring out the big guns.

"What if I gave you Gumi's mailbox number?" Luka asked, lowering her voice.

Gakupo's questioning expression shattered. "Wha...What? Why would I want that?"

"You've been meaning to ask her out, right? I think it'd be sweet if you sent her something first."

The violinist glanced behind him at the green-haired girl sitting at one of the room's small tables, carefully brushing out a character with a deadly concentration.

"No, that wouldn't be right," he said, his cheeks visibly colored. "I'll just talk to her. It would be better that way."

"Doesn't she have a birthday coming up?" Luka asked knowingly. "I bet she'd just _love_ to get a card from her senior."

"I'll... I'll just email her something."

"Really? I'm sure she'd appreciate an actual card a _lot_ more..."

"Hold on," the violinist cut in. "All right. I know what you're trying to do here, Luka, and though I have to admit it _is_... tempting, despite an ethical qualm or two, your offering it does not change the fact that the plan you want my help with is still quite ludicrous."

"Maybe," Luka conceded. "But then, I guess it's fortunate that it isn't _your_ plan. Like I said, all I need from you is the club room's address, absolutely nothing else. In the worst case scenario, I'd take whatever blame that got dished out."

"And if anyone ever questions how this room got used as a return address?"

"I'd just say that it was my idea, and that I did it without your knowing. Which I could have done, by the way. Really, the fact that I'm even trying to win you over on this should count for something, don't you think?"

"Well," the violinist murmured, "I suppose that's true. Though I don't especially appreciate your pointing it out."

"All I'm trying to say is that you can trust me on this. And besides," Luka added, "there's still that matter of surprising Gumi on her birthday."

Gakupo opened his mouth, then shut it, giving a quiet groan. "All right, _fine_. You can use this room for your little... Whatever it is you're doing."

Luka smiled. "Thanks, Gakupo. I knew I could count on you."

"But, if this girl you're writing to doesn't like this, I want to be able to count on your taking full responsibility for it, all right?" Gakupo said. "I'd prefer not to take any blame if something ends up going wrong."

"You'll get full amnesty from me," Luka replied. She wasn't afraid of anything going wrong, of course. All she could think about now was how surprised her teal-haired Four-Thirty Mail Girl was going to be when she opened up her mailbox tomorrow.

"Good." Gakupo glanced about the room a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Out of curiosity, do you think it'd be too much to put a poem in a birthday card?"

Luka gave a sigh. Maybe the big guns were a bit _too_ big.

* * *

The mail room was almost completely empty as Luka entered it, the middle-aged woman behind the counter its only occupant. That wasn't surprising, given that it was still so early in the morning. Right now, most students were either rushing to get to their first classes or still fast sleep, and anyone engaged in something else probably didn't consider checking their mail anything an immediate priority.

Swinging her backpack off a shoulder and in front of her, Luka pulled out the envelope she'd prepared, still unsealed in case she wanted to make any last-minute changes to the message it held. Such changes might very well be necessary, given the care that the letter had to be written with. If it felt too impersonal, it would just be a piece of junk mail that everyone got sent and that Miku would surely be glad to get rid of. Except, if it felt too intimate, Miku would probably be too nervous from the sudden closeness to actually enjoy having gotten a letter at all. It wasn't easy to strike a balance between the two extremes, but Lily had helped Luka come close, she hoped.

She took the letter out of its envelope and unfolded it, deciding to read it over one last time.

_Dear Miku,_

_How are you? I'm writing to you on behalf of The Letter-Writing Club here on campus! As you might know, we're a fairly new organization, but we still hope to spread the joys of sending and receiving mail to students all over the conservatory._

_So, I'd like for you to tell me a little about yourself! Write back to me about your major, what classes you're taking this semester, what you like to do in your spare time, anything at all! Remember, our goal is to get students involved in the postal system and to encourage handwritten means of communication, so anything you'd like to write back is fine. Receiving mail is part of the fun, of course, so I'll be glad to read anything you might choose to respond with. Also, please remember that confidentiality is very important to us, so anything in your reply won't be shared with anyone else without your explicit permission. Of course, if you'd prefer not to respond at all, that's fine too. We realize that students are quite busy, so don't feel pressured to take the time to write back if it doesn't interest you. I just hope you enjoyed getting a letter, and that you'll get the opportunity to write to your friends or family and spread the joys of mail._

_Hope you have a good day!_

_- M. L., junior member of The Letter-Writing Club_

Luka scrutinized over the text, but couldn't find anything she felt uncomfortable or unsure about. The message was formal enough to seem official, but there was still enough use of the singular first person to it lend a bit of familiarity. It also wasn't very pressuring in its language, she thought, which she hoped would make Miku see the good intentions with which it was composed. The only thing Luka wished she'd come up with something more creative for was the signature; the use of romaji felt especially mysterious in this letter, and though it gave a bit of identity to its writer, there was still enough obscurity in the pseudonym to possibly make it come off as too authoritarian, too masked. Luka had considered just coming up with a false name, one actually written in kanji, but ultimately decided against it. She was already dealing in some considerable dishonesty, and she didn't feel right only adding to the inconsistencies she was deaing out. The short of it was, western-style initials were the best option either Luka or Lily could come up with, and much to her chagrin, Luka wasn't struck by a better plan now. Still, on the whole it worked, more or less. It wasn't a perfect letter, but it would be good enough to get its job done.

So she hoped.

Luka replaced the paper into the envelope and sealed it shut, then said her goodbyes to the letter as she slid it into the intra-campus mail slot. As it disappeared down the metal chute, a bit of relief washed over her. The message was finally sent. But she knew this wasn't the end of things. Receiving was just as important as sending, after all, reading as vital to communication as composing. Luka was confident that Miku would take the letter well – if she wasn't then she wouldn't have mailed it at all – but there was still a bit of anxiety of rejection mixed in with her anticipation of a joyous look of surprise on the teal-haired girl's face.

Then there was the issue of getting a response. She had intended for there to be a second letter, as was clear in the composition of the first, since a reply would serve as considerable evidence of success in this adventure. It was one thing for the message to have been well received, but another entirely to _know_ of that reception. And Luka wanted to be sure she'd done as she'd hoped: that Miku was glad to get this sort of surprise attention through the mail.

The pink-haired woman turned around and headed toward the doors out. In any case, for now, she'd done all she could do.

Now, she simply had to wait.

* * *

_Tick-tock_, the clock on the mail room wall sang, the tempo of its song a long, painful _grave._

Luka stared at it intently, drumming her fingers on her desk as rapidly as possible, as if to conduct the troublesome timepiece to pick up the pace. All her past experiences of waiting in this room were failing her now, the silence of the place a weight in the air instead of the simple absence of labor. Her anxiety for what was about to come felt palpable, as if her worry could come to life and throttle her for ever bothering to mail that letter at all. She didn't regret taking up the plan, of course, but now that it was in motion she couldn't help but feel worried that its results would be less that what she'd hoped for. There was only so much in this scenario that she could control, and the possibilities she'd opened up were nerve-wracking.

The mail room was as quiet as snowfall, the air almost suffocating. Luka wished she'd installed a game or two on her phone to pass the time, to distract herself from the waiting now that she could no longer stand the looming quiet. If she would ever actually let herself stoop to playing with her phone while on her shift, that is. She decided to play her aria on loop in her head and began analyzing every single note in its melody, trying to decide how best to sing it after five o'clock finally hit.

Finally, the wooden doors at the far end of the room creaked open, and Luka glanced back at the clock to discover its longer hand pointing straight at the floor. It seemed the guest of honor had finally arrived, whether she knew her station or not.

Miku hastened into the mail room, her teal hear fluttering behind her in the rush of her motion, and immediately stopped in front of her mailbox. She reached far up to its knob and gave it a few quick turns, opening the door with a familiar _click_. She peaked up into it, seemingly about to slam the door back shut, but as she peered into the metal box her eyes suddenly went wide and her lips sank into the tinniest of puzzled frowns. Slowly, she reached inside and pulled out a single white envelope, closing the door as she lowered herself back down to the floor. For several long moments, she just stared at the front of the envelope, seemingly enamored by the very sight of it. She turned it over a few times, rotating it in her hands as if in disbelief. After another moment or two, she glanced up at Luka, her eyes two deep wells of confusion. Luka smiled back at her with as much cheerful friendliness as possible, hoping to hide her knowledge behind a facade of congratulations. The teal-haired girl gave a small smile in return and, just as hurriedly as she entered, left the mail room.

In the renewed silence, Luka stared awhile at the wooden double doors, as if by doing so she could see into the head of their opener. Miku had seemed surprised, certainly, but it was difficult to say what else. She mainly just radiated an incredible nervousness, one even stronger than usual.

Luka sighed. Or maybe she was just over thinking things. She hadn't gotten the look of joy she'd been hoping for, but the fact was, she couldn't really know the teal-haired girls' feelings on the matter until she got a response from her.

_If_ she got a response from her.

She drummed her fingers on the desk again. It seemed her waiting wasn't over just yet.

_Tick-tock_, the clock continued to call out. Passively, Luka let its measurements fill the air.

* * *

The soft notes of brushes swiffing against paper rang about in the club room, its sparse occupants all hunched over their own little canvases as they each set ink in motion. Luka swept across her paper with a few short, final strokes, leaving behind the finishing marks on the character. She sat up straight and set her brush down, scrutinizing over the raven-streaked paper. The piece seemed off, somehow, like it was missing a crucial bit of focus in its lines. She couldn't bring herself to feel anywhere close to satisfied with it, the character looked so unprofessional. Not that that bothered her very much. If nothing else, drawing it had been good practice.

Gakupo, noticing the change in Luka's pose, walked over to her seat and peered over her shoulder at the paper on the desk.

"Is it any good?" Luka asked. "I think I rushed a few of the earlier strokes, and those made the later ones a little more sloppy."

The club president examined the ink strokes a moment. "It's not your best work, no, but 'sloppy' isn't the word I'd use. The main problem is that you're a little stuck between styles – see, your 'heart' radical looks quite cursive, but the rest is closer to standard script. I'd say to put a bit more feeling into it, but more importantly to make it more consistent."

"Ah, thanks," Luka said, giving a short laugh. "I've just been a little distracted lately, with everything that's been going on."

"I should think so," Gakupo said. "You have that recital tonight, don't you?"

"Seven o'clock," Luka replied. "I'll probably end up dashing out of here a little early to get some food beforehand, if that's okay."

"I'd prefer a bit more discipline in my members, but in this case, I think we can make an exception."

"I'll try to pretend you meant that as a joke," Luka said, rolling her eyes.

"And speaking of things that we wish were jokes..." Gakupo pulled an envelope out from his jacket and presented its front to Luka. "This arrived in the clubroom mailbox today. Since it's addressed to that imaginary 'Letter-Writing Club' of yours, I assume it's from that girl you've been hunting down."

Luka's eyes lit up and she snatched the letter out of Gakupo's hands. "She wrote back!" she whispered happily.

She tore open the top of the envelope, relishing in the satisfying crunches of the paper as it split into its jagged two edges. The opening of a letter was always a kind of anticipatory ceremony for her, a kind of wondrous suspense preceding the actual message, like unwrapping a gift on Christmas morning. She finally drew the letter out of the envelope, but paused in unfolding it.

"Do you mind?" she said to Gakupo, who was still staring over her shoulder.

"Well, don't you think I have a right to know what this girl wrote, too?" the violinist said. "What if she's telling you to back off, or if she's threatening to turn the president of your little club in? There's a very real chance I'll be affected by this."

"If you are, I'll let you know," Luka replied. "But this is still a personal letter, and I'd like a bit of privacy. Besides, I promised her I wouldn't tell anybody else what she wrote in here."

Gakupo sighed. "Fine, fine. I should be working on a new character now anyway."

He walked off to another corner of the room and Luka, now content to read the letter, unfolded it.

The first thing Luka noticed about the letter itself was just how cute the stationary was. The border around the message itself was a soft shade of pink, with a few pawprints scattered about and cartoon cat faces here and there and in the corners. The inside of the border, where the letter was written, was a faint bluish-white, with a few more cats rolling around on its surface. Luka couldn't help but grin as she saw the design. She'd always had a soft spot for cats, and it was somehow heartening to see that Miku apparently did too. Except, as she thought about it more, Luka found it a little strange that the teal-haired girl had stationary at all – if she hadn't received any letters all semester, it didn't really follow that she would have _sent_ any, meaning having a stack of stationary around would be pointless. There was the possibility that she had ran out and bought some after receiving Luka's letter, or maybe that she'd just borrowed a sheet from someone. But there was also the chance that Miku had kept a stack of the papers with her all this past semester in hopes that she'd one day get a letter to write back to. Although that seemed unlikely, not to mention horribly tragic, what little Luka knew about the teal-haired girl almost made her inclined to believe it. Or at least more _willing_ to believe it. The thought made her feel a lot better about going through with this plan, in any case.

She turned her attention to the letter itself.

_Dear M. L., _it read, apparently keeping the romaji of the previous note,

_I'm well, thank you. How about you? I have to admit, I was pretty surprised to get your letter today (or yesterday... sorry, this probably won't get to you until the day after I write it!). I had no idea our conservatory has a Letter-Writing Club, but I'm really glad that you wrote me! None of my friends have heard of you though – are you planning on writing to them later, too?_

_Anyway, I think it's really cool that you're doing this, so sure, I'd be glad to tell you about myself! I'm a first-year student, and I'm studying voice. This semester I'm taking a composition class in addition to the core courses of the voice major, which has been pretty fun so far (even though I'm terrible at music theory!). Right now I'm in the cooking club and the literature club, but I'm looking at other ones, too. As for free time...well, I don't always have a lot of that, to be honest! But when I do, I just hang out with friends, watch movies, maybe read a book, that sort of thing. Although, I also really like photography, so sometimes I just walk around campus and try to find stuff to take a picture of. I know there's a photography club here, but I'm a little nervous about joining. I'm really just an amateur when it comes to taking photos (sometimes I'll even use my cellphone instead of an actual camera!), so I guess I'm worried about not being as good as the other members. Plus, I don't know much about the technical parts of it, so I'd be a little lost if people started talking about cameras and stuff. But maybe I'll join next semester, after I've gotten a bit better at it. Anyway, what about you? What do you like to do outside the Letter-Writing Club? Also, what's your major? If you're doing voice, maybe you can give me a few tips!_

_I'd just like to say again I'm really glad you sent this. I hope you get lots more letters in the future!_

_- Hatsune Miku_

Luka looked up from the message, satisfied. From the very start, the letter had confirmed what she was most anxious about succeeding in: Miku was, in fact, glad to get mail. The thought elated Luka. She imagined the teal-haired girl rushing back to her dorm with the letter dearly clutched in her hand and then opening the envelope with an even greater excitement than Luka had approached this response with. Then she thought of the way Miku's eyes must have lit up as she saw the friendly, personalized tone with which the letter was composed, how a sunny grin must have spread across her lips as she realized she could find the joy of writing back to someone. The girl must have an adorable smile, Luka decided. There was something in her demeanor that demanded it.

And then, Luka's euphoria was washed away by a troubling revelation. In her response, Miku had asked almost as many questions as she'd answered. Luka had noticed them at first, yes, but she was too caught up in the giddiness that the warmth of the writing inspired in her to see their full implications. Miku expected a response of her own. She had no intentions, as Luka did, of letting the lines of communication fall apart so quickly.

Had she been writing under almost any other circumstances, this would've been cause for further joy for Luka. Not only had her partner in this written dance accepted her hand, she'd asked her to stick around for another song. It meant Luka could once again go through that satisfying process of composition, that there'd be another envelope for her to seal and send on its merry way. And it meant that Luka could once again receive that wonderful surprise of a new envelope, that she'd get to again tear open the thick paper and gorge herself on the message within. She wanted to keep writing Miku. She wanted to learn more about her, to feel as if she truly understood the teal-haired girl.

But Luka knew all too well how risky that was. With every letter "The Letter-Writing Club" sent out, the more opportunities for questions would arise. There could be more inconsistencies between what Luka claimed and reality. The lie would have to become more complex, more unwieldy, and that would only allow for more dents to show through.

It would mean Miku might find out the truth, sooner or later.

Luka took a deep breath and set the letter aside. Now would be an excellent time to redraw that character from before, she decided. She picked up her brush and lost herself in the thick raven lines with which she decorated the paper in front of her.

* * *

"It was _terrible_," Lily groaned out the moment the can of beer in her hand was off her lips. "You know what she said to me? 'Sorry Lily, but I think I like guys more after all.'" She slammed her bottle down on the floor. "Who the hell _ever_ says that? Okay, I'm not sayin' I haven't gotten that before, but, you know, _why_? I mean, it's freakin' insane, is what it is! Show me _one_ guy who can do what I did last night, just _one_. I'll bet you ten thousand yen you can't."

"Do you even _have_ ten thousand yen?" Meiko asked dryly.

"Of course not! That's just how confident I am!" The blonde raised her can up to where it was almost vertical and took a few long gulps. "Really, _she's_ the one who should be upset right now, not me. I mean, it's _her _loss, you know? _She's_ the losing party here. All _I_ lost was time and whatever that one six-pack of Sapporo cost." And another long gulp. "Even if she did have such great thighs. And breasts. Okay, pretty much everything in between, too, but it's not like this means the world's ending or anything."

Luka shook her head at the sight. It always seemed to fall out this way with Lily after a break-up, no matter who initiated it. In some ways, it was a response Luka could appreciate, despite the copious amounts of liquor involved. If nothing else, no one ever had to tip-toe around her love life in fear of bringing up the issue of estranged lovers, since Lily never gave anyone the chance to - she never needed an invitation or even a related topic to start bemoaning her newest loss. And after she'd started talking about it, she'd hit the bottle, hard. Of course, that only made her more vocal about the issue, leading her back to the comfort of alcohol, and on and on it went. She'd also write a deeply sorrowful haiku from time to time. Never an outright poem, nothing so long, just three lines of despair at the latest maiden with whom the blonde had parted ways. Of course, all this grief flew in the face of the considerably more lax attitude Lily normally took towards relationships, meaning it couldn't represent _that_ deep a pain. Really, she was usually more angry than outright bereaved, but it still bothered Luka to see her roommate go through this as often as she did.

"Oh prickly first-year," the blonde called out lyrically, "gone from me now are those thighs, fragrant as this beer."

Not one of her better compositions, but then again the night was still young.

"Lily, maybe you shouldn't go after the girls who say they're just experimenting so much," Luka said. "If you want something that's long-standing, I mean."

"Hey, I never said I wanted it to be long-standin'," Lily slurred out. "Long-standin' means you're done with flings, you're anchored, you know? I'm young, I'm fit, all that good stuff – I mean, I can get variety, so why not? And anyway, variety's easier."

"Not on roommates," Meiko muttered.

"No, what _gets_ me," Lily continued, apparently unperturbed, "is them not seein' it like I do. Them not takin' it anywhere close to seriously, I mean." She took another long swig from her bottle. "Like this girl. If she's just goin' back to guys, then that means I'm not 'the real thing' to her. I mean, sure, to me she was two dates and a romp in bed, but that's still more than whatever she's twisted this into. Hell, I'll bet you right now she's off trying to win over some guy by saying she did it with another girl. 'Cuz they'll do that, you know, I've seen it. They act like it's a show or something, like it's just to turn men on."

Luka frowned. This part was new, and considerably more troubling. Even Meiko looked concerned.

"Come on, Lily," Luka said, trying to reassure her. "Not all of them are like that. Maybe this girl still thinks well of you, but just realized she doesn't swing that way."

"Try gettin' dumped by half a dozen, _then_ say that," Lily mumbled. She took another long gulp – Luka wondered just how much drink could possibly be in one can – then let out a loud sigh. "Sorry, I'm just a bit drunk and I'm ramblin'. You two oughta talk about something."

"Are you sure?" Luka asked, still concerned.

"Yeah, it's all right. I'll be fine, really. I bounce back, you know? Look to the future, not the past and all that."

"If you say so," Meiko said. "So Luka - did your Four-Thirty Mail Girl write you back?"

"Ah, that's right!" Lily cried out. "Yeah, that's still goin' on. How 'bout it, huh Luka?"

Luka lowered her head a little. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you two about that..."

"I knew it," Meiko groaned. "She was angry, wasn't she? I told you she wasn't going to take this well, Luka, we're talking about a random letter sent from some club no one's heard of and–"

"That's not it," Luka cut in. "She _liked_ the letter, Meiko. She wrote back saying she was _glad_ she got it."

Meiko's hung open for a moment, a word or two (of disbelief, her eyes told) dying malformed before she closed it again. "Ah. Well... That's surprising."

"I knew it!" Lily cried. "That's it, Luka, you're on your way now! You can bed 'er in no time, you'll see!" She clapped Luka hard on the shoulder, making her eyes go, as impossible as it seemed, a tad wider.

"Look, Lily," Meiko said, "I know you're a little... unbalanced right now, but I think we should lay off the whole 'Luka should date the Four-Thirty Mail Girl' teasing for a bit."

"Who's teasin'? Luka, she's cute, right? You never said if she was cute."

"That's really not the issue here," Luka said flatly.

"She's talking about the _letter_, not the girl," Meiko reiterated. "How cute she is isn't important."

"So _you_ say," Lily scoffed. "Just because _you're_ not interested in the good stuff doesn't mean it's not on Luka's mind."

"I'm sorry, 'the good stuff'?"

"Can we get back on topic, please?" Luka said, forcing down her bewilderment. "I was saying there's a problem with what she wrote back."

"And that it wasn't that she was mad," Meiko said.

"So, what was it, then?" Lily asked. "You said she was glad to get the letter. That sounds to me like everything went according to plan."

"Not exactly," Luka said. "See, when she wrote back, she sorta... well, she asked a lot of questions in her response."

"You mean questions like 'Who are you and how'd you get my mailbox number?'" Meiko asked.

"No Meiko, I already said she wasn't angry," Luka reiterated. "She asked... Okay, the thing is, I can't really _tell_ you everything she asked, since I swore what she wrote would be confidential, but suffice to say she brought up more things to talk about."

Lily looked puzzled. "That seems pretty natural, doesn't it? I mean, somebody talks to you, you're probably gonna talk back a little."

"Except I think she wants me to write back another letter," Luka said. "And then she'll probably write another letter to me, and after that she'll probably want _another_ response, and so on. It's almost like she wants to keep up some kind of correspondence."

"So?" Meiko asked. "You said you wanted to get to know her better. Isn't some kind of correspondence generally _required_ for that?"

"Yeah, but..." Luka trailed off, struggling to find her protests. "But if I keep writing to her, don't you think she'll find out the truth, eventually?"

"If you keep it up, I guess," Lily said. "But c'mon, this is just one more letter. That's not gonna hurt anyone. Things don't hafta get like you said, you know."

"Besides, you ought to think about _her_ feelings, Luka," Meiko chimed in. "She's clearly invested in you writing back, so what's the point in not?"

Luka stared at the brunette a moment. "Hold on," she said. "You're saying I should keep writing her? This girl I haven't even met, Meiko?"

"Well, I mean," Meiko stuttered, "now that you've actually gone and sent that _first_ letter..."

"But I don't want to come off as a _stalker_ or anything," Luka said slyly.

"All right, all right, I get it, you win," Meiko said. "Yes, Luka, you're _not_ a stalker."

"Thank you," Luka said, grinning in satisfaction. It was a pretty rare thing to get Meiko to change her mind, especially when she thought her friends were doing something questionable. Luka had to stop herself from gloating more, but she was going to make sure to remember this.

"But anyway, like I was saying," Meiko resumed, "if you don't write back, she'll probably be disappointed, and I don't think that's what you want."

"No, it isn't," Luka conceded. "But if I write back, won't she just want another response?"

"I still don't see the problem," Lily said. "If you keep writin' her, won't that make an actual relationship, you know, more likely? I mean, you'll find out more about each other, see what you have in common, that sorta thing."

"But she won't know she's writing to _me_. She'll think she's still writing to M. L., junior member of the Letter-Writing Club. And if I suddenly reveal myself as the one behind it all, she'll know something's fishy, since I see her check her mail everyday. Eventually, she'll probably learn there wasn't any 'Letter-Writing Club' in the first place, and I doubt she'll want much to do with me then."

"That's exactly what I told you before," Meiko sighed. "But now that you're in this, you can't just back down at the first problem. Just write her back, but try to wrap things up in the letter. Don't do anything explicit, but try to politely bring the conversation to a close."

Luka thought a moment. "Well, I guess that makes sense. I just don't want to seem too cold with this, is the thing, and I'm worried at how to do it right."

"Hey, I can help you!" Lily chirped as she clapped Luka on the back. "I've got plenty of experience with turning people down! Well, then again, this'll be my first time doing it to a girl, but I doubt that'll be a problem."

"Sounds great!" Luka said, smiling. She held it a second until it slowly faded. "But, this can wait till tomorrow, right? There's still that test coming up, and... well, you know."

"It's fine as long as you don't talk about studying for the next half-hour or so," Lily said, cracking open another can of beer. She took a few long gulps and dramatically wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Now then, have I ever told you about this one girl in my composition class?"

* * *

_Dear Miku,_

_Thanks so much for your response! I'm always glad to know someone enjoyed getting a letter from us, which of course is why I joined the Letter-Writing Club in the first place. To answer your question, though, we only write to students on our mailing list, since we realize not everyone on campus would appreciate a message from us. It's a bit strange you seem so surprised about getting this, then. I suppose your name and mailbox number somehow got here on accident, but at least that doesn't seem to be an issue for you.  
_

_I think it's fantastic you're pushing yourself to branch out like that. Your first year is a good time to look into some other areas of study that you might not have thought about before, and introductory composition is something that's useful for any musician. Don't worry too much about the theory, though – most people struggle with it at first, but it really does get easier once you get the basics down. It's good that you've looked into some clubs, too. They're a really great way to meet people and become better acclimated to the campus. I would encourage you to look more into the photography club, though. I'm sure that they want new members, and they're going to care a lot more about you being interested in photography than what technical knowledge you have. If there are things you ought to know about, I'm sure they'd be happy to teach you!_

_As for myself, I'm a voice major, too. That's why I understand what you're going through with music theory – often it doesn't feel as applicable for a singer as it might for an instrumentalist. Chord structure was something that took me a while to really get down, for example, since I've never really had to make use of it outside composition work. Anyway, I'd be happy to give you a few pointers! I suppose the main thing is just to practice every day, _with warm-ups_. I hope your instructor already tells you this, but it really is important. The more used to singing and vocalization you can make your voice, the better performer you'll be. Of course, you also need to keep you throat healthy, so if you're ever losing your voice or you're sick or anything, _don't_ force yourself. You might get a bit more practicing done in the short run, but in the long run you'll just wear yourself thin. And don't worry, your instructors know this too – they'll be much happier with you if you just tell them that you're not feeling well than if you push yourself too much and make things harder as a result. Hope that helps!_

_I'm glad to hear you enjoyed hearing from us. Hearing back from our correspondents is the most satisfying part of this club, after all. We hope you continue to write more letters in the future! Write to old friends, family, current friends – mail is a fantastic way of brightening someone's day!_

_- M. L._

"Think that sounds all right?" Luka asked.

"It'll probably get the job done, sure," Lily replied. She winced and clutched the side of her head. "Sorry, I can't really think too hard about this right now."

Luka sighed. "I told you to drink some water, you know. You'd feel better now."

"I know, I know," Lily groaned. "It's just, water wasn't going to make me stop thinking about... Well, all that happened. With her."

Luka rolled her eyes. She'd ended up writing the letter entirely by herself this time, owing to the fact that her options for further input were either drunk Lily or hungover Lily. Experience had taught her neither was particularly helpful, but since Meiko still wanted as little to do with this as possible, Luka decided her best bet would be to get a second opinion from Lily in the morning. She'd hoped a brief critique of her work wouldn't be too much of a strain. Thinking back on the mountains of empties Lily had left in her wake, that hope seemed more than a little naïve right now.

Not that Luka was particularly frustrated at her roommate. It was hard to be, considering she'd have to go through classes like this. None of her voice instructors would appreciate another sudden absence, let alone on a Friday. It would reek far too much of starting the weekend early, as so many less responsible students were wont to do, and despite the impression she might give, Lily was too smart to not see the rather drastic repercussions of that.

"My head's not splitting open or anything, right?" the blonde asked.

"Not from what I can tell, no."

"Well, there's a comfort." She gave a half-smile, then reached into her pocket and knocked back an aspirin.

"So, this really seems fine to you?" Luka asked. "It's polite, but it still sends the right message, right?"

"I guess, sure," Lily said. "It sounds friendly enough to me, and you made your point just fine with that last bit there. Should be all right, I think."

"But, what if it doesn't get through? What if she writes back again?"

"Then you'll have another letter from her. We can worry about that when and if it actually happens." The blonde tilted her head back and vigorously rubbed her temples, shifting forward a bit as she put her hands back down. "Are you really this hung up about hearing from her again? I thought you wanted to know about her."

"I do," Luka said." But, the most important thing was giving her mail. I mean, I told you how happy she was in her letter. You remember that, right?"

"Mostly I remember a lot of cheap booze and a clock that wouldn't turn back two hours," Lily replied, "but yeah, I get it. Only, what I'm wondering is, wouldn't she be_ happier_ if she got more letters? And won't she be disappointed when they stop coming?"

"That's why I've got to pull the plug early, Lily," Luka said. "If this becomes a regular thing, she'll find out what's actually going on sooner or later, and that'll make things worse than before. I mean, wouldn't _you _feel kinda resentful if someone you thought you knew only first talked to you out of pity?

"I think that's kinda harsh. You wanted to do something nice for her, so you did, and she seems appreciative. I don't really see where this ill-will you're so worried about is supposed to come in."

"Well, she couldn't be very happy if she figures out this 'Letter-Writing Club' isn't real, right? Especially someone as timid as her. It could be unwanted attention, if seen all together."

Lily sighed. "Okay, fine, whatever. I don't really want to debate this right now."

"You're the one who brought it up," Luka pointed out.

"Well, I didn't think you'd argue back."

"Fair enough," Luka said. "So, you're sure this is fine?"

"I'm only _sure_ that I've got drills boring holes in my skull, but I think it'll work okay, yeah."

Luka swallowed. "All right." She folded the letter and slid it into an envelope marked _Campus Mail – 3724_.

And so was readied another brave sailor, ready and able to ship off. Every hesitation from before still rang clear in Luka's head, but they were tempered now by logic and even a bit of trust – in herself, in what her friends had offered. She took a long breath. Every once in a while, things had to be left to chance, she reminded herself. The lack of control bothered her, but she knew she had to grit her teeth and go with it. If nothing else, she owed Miku the kindness to see this plan through to the end.

"Goddammit," Lily softly groaned. "I still have classes today..."

* * *

_Tick-tock_, the clock hanging on the mail room wall spoke in a slow, mechanical voice.

Luka barely noticed the sound as she heaved a box of books over onto the counter, pushing them towards the the student who'd finally come in to claim them. The box had sat with other, newer packages for about five days now, just barely within Crypton's time limit on package claims. And of course the guy who'd ordered them just_ had _to come in on Luka's shift to actually pick them up. Not only that, but he'd done it so late that Luka had almost forgotten how heavy the box's contents were, or indeed that it had ever existed at all, which made lifting the thing all the more unpleasant.

"Here you go," Luka said as she took a step away from the counter, quickly recovering from the unexpected strain she'd undergone.

The student said a word of thanks, heaved the box up himself, then went off on his merry way out through the mail room's wooden double doors, staggering a little under the weight of the package. Luka briefly wondered just what kind of books the guy had ordered in the first place; it was too far into the semester to just write them off as textbooks, and even then a music student wouldn't need so many as to make the box they'd all arrive in heavy enough to make your arms scream. Maybe he was just an especially enthusiastic bookworm. A bookworm who only read encyclopedias the size of laptops.

She brushed the thoughts off. Some student who'd been late to claim a package wasn't who she was supposed to be wondering about.

As she'd considered all that had happened with Operation Letter-Writing Club so far, Luka started to feel somewhat content with the way things had fallen out. What Lily had said finally started to ring true: this was just one more letter. And even without much of her roommate's input, Luka was fairly confident that this one more letter would be able to do its duty. It was disappointing, in a way, to have to end this relationship so early, but then again Luka couldn't really say she'd actually carried on with Miku or anything. As fun as letters were, they didn't amount to an actual meeting or an actual conversation, and more importantly there were so much smoke-and-mirrors play involved with those letters that even the words they shared through post felt a little less than genuine. But still, the plan had succeeded; Luka had pleased her Four-Thirty Mail Girl once, and now they would both move on.

No wonder Lily approved of this plan so much.

The wooden doors began to groan a low _creak,_ and a glance at the clock showed the awaited time had arrived. In walked the teal-haired girl, straight for her mailbox as usual, though maybe a bit slower than normal. She reached up, turned the dial, sounded the familiar _click_, swung open the door, raised herself a bit higher to peak inside. But then, suddenly, there it was: that very look Luka had waited for. As she looked into the mailbox, Miku's eyes glimmered for a mere second or two, her entire face brightened as she broke out into a small smile. It wasn't a wide grin, not the look of unbridled joy, more the smile of hearing birds sing again after a long winter, one far more genuine than the nervous, sideways glances Miku had obliged Luka with before. Even so far away from that expression, Luka couldn't help but grin at it, though she wiped the look off her face almost instantly for fear it'd be seen by its prompter.

Miku reached into her mailbox and slid out the single white envelope from inside, staring a few seconds at its front with a calmer reprint of that first smile on her face. Almost inadvertently, she broke off from the letter, her eyes again nervously greeting Luka's, and the pink-haired woman replied with the politest smile she could manage. The look of joy jolted a little from some bit of shock, Miku's gaze darting to the floor, to a nearby wall of mailboxes. With a less candid smile, she finally pushed the wooden doors back open and walked out.

And in the resulting silence, Luka found even more satisfaction at the way it all had worked out. The look of joyful surprise had finally come, even if it was a bit more subdued than she first imagined. It was a look that had cut straight through her, a look that had enveloped her like the heat of an autumn bonfire. Suddenly all the worrying she'd gone through the past couple of days felt worthwhile.

Only, she couldn't quite shake the anxiety of what might happen with another letter, what problems might arise if Miku went against this letter's intentions. It really would be better for everyone if this correspondence ended quickly, Luka was still certain. Fewer letters would mean fewer complications, and fewer complications meant more believability. Shorter would be easier, and in this case surely easier was healthier.

But, nothing more could be done by now. For the moment, Luka thought it best to shut up the worrisome little voices in her head.

_Tick-tock_, cooed the clock on the wall. Absentmindedly, Luka followed the soft clicks, wading in the calculated, predictable sound.

* * *

A/N: So, I'm very, _very_ aware that this update was delayed far more than it should've been. I really don't have any excuse for that, but if it's any comfort, I can promise that the next chapter will come much, _much_ sooner than this one did, and furthermore that this story _will_ see completion. Trust me, I hate dropped fics just as much as you do.


	3. Chapter 3

"..._languise il cor!_"

The piano track faded into silence, lasting a measure or two after Luka finished her own decrescendo. She took in a long, slow breath, the air sweet as it filled her lungs. The tight walls of the practice room reverberated a moment or two longer with the last couple of notes. Pretty on pitch, Luka decided. Still, she supposed her intonation could still be better. As she'd expected, intonation was what her instructor had told her to work on, and as much as she was keen on mastering the technique on her own it was a bit difficult to judge herself on the matter. It was work enough to actually sing, and Luka didn't really feel up to recording herself at the moment. But, considering that getting another point of view on her performance wasn't really possible on a Saturday morning, she didn't have a lot of choice at the moment. It was an almost Pyrrhic pay-off; practicing so early on a weekend guaranteed her an unoccupied room, but also made it almost impossible find an accompanist, or even someone conscious enough to just listen to her song. Luka's pianist had a pretty specific schedule, and Saturdays were the days they'd agreed to not pressure each other with practicing. It wasn't as if other pianists were hard to come by, normally, but early weekend mornings seemed to be the universal exception.

Or, almost universal. Luka had spotted a couple other students in other rooms as she went down the halls. Probably all of them had a bit of criticism of their own they were worried about. Or were just early risers.

Luka yawned. She could only attest to the former.

Breathing more regularly now, Luka coiled up the mini-speaker plugged into her phone and stuffed it into her backpack. Not the most professional means of practicing a piece, she knew, but it was the best she could do when all the pianists were still asleep. She pocketed her phone and stepped back out into the hallway, rubbing a bit more sleep out of her eyes.

"Good morning."

Luka froze, a little surprised, then slowly turned around. A well-dressed and all together not sleepy Gakupo stood in the hall, violin case in hand, backpack in tow.

"Morning," Luka replied. "You look... productive. I mean, that you've _been_ productive."

"I've only just arrived, actually," Gakupo said. "I take it you've practiced, then?"

"I ran through one of my arias a few times, yes, but I didn't spend all that much time on it."

"How long?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty minutes," Luka said, shrugging. "It's still too early to get any real practicing done."

"Speak for yourself," the violinist said. "I'll be here for the next hour and a half or so."

"On a Saturday morning?"

"It's just nice to get daily practice out of the way early. That, and I find it relaxing to run through a scale or two. It helps me settle into the weekend a bit more."

"And sleeping in doesn't?"

"That's what Sundays are for," Gakupo said. "I'm a little surprised to see you here, though. I've never bumped into you before this time of day."

"Well, you know," Luka said. "I'm feeling a bit more stressed than usual, and I guess I just didn't feel comfortable sleeping in with all that work still hanging over me. I wanted to do something more active than studying or reading, even if it's a bit early to actually sing well. But I'll probably come back in the afternoon, once my voice is a bit more alive."

"Ah, yes. You vocalists do say that a lot, don't you? That it's 'too early to sing well.'" The violinist shook his head. "Frankly, I'm not sure I understand it. How can the time of day affect the quality of your voice? _I've_ never had any trouble playing in the morning."

"It's because you need motor skills to play your instrument, while all I can fall back on is my throat and breathing," Luka countered. "You have to wake up your arms and fingers while I have to wake up my vocal cords and my entire respiratory system. And see, your voice only starts to really be ready for the demands of singing after you've used it for a while."

"But what confuses me is you _have_ sang at early times," Gakupo said. "Very well, if I might add. I don't believe I've gotten the chance to tell you this before, but I went to a matinee of _Die Fledermaus _last year, and you were superb."

"Well, thank you," Luka said, wondering how Gakupo could never have had the chance to compliment her on a performance she'd done nearly half a year ago.

"So I suppose my point is, how is it you performed so well _then_? Does early afternoon simply not count as 'too early to sing well'?"

"Not necessarily, no. By then, one would hope one's voice has woken up more."

"And if it hasn't?"

"Then you'll just have to do your warm-ups a little longer than normal."

The violinist thought a moment. "So when you say, 'too early,' what you actually mean is, 'I haven't warmed up enough yet'?"

"Something like that, sure," Luka sighed.

"Well, I suppose that makes more sense then," Gakupo said. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I almost forgot! You know, it's actually rather fortunate I ran into you..." He set his violin on the floor and dug into his backpack, finally producing a paper and holding it out towards Luka.

She squinted a bit more drowsiness out of her eyes. No, not a paper. An envelope.

Of course.

"It would appear that you got another one," the violinist said.

"You actually _checked_?" Luka said, taking the envelope. "On a Saturday morning?"

"It was on the way here," Gakupo explained. "And besides, if I didn't bother looking, I would have been thinking about it my entire practice session, and I'd rather that I won't be so unfocused."

"Well, thanks, I suppose."

Gakupo frowned. "You don't seem very pleased."

"No, I'm glad, really," Luka said. "Sort of. I mean, it's a little complicated."

"Complicated how?"

Luka swallowed. She was treading on eggshells, and she knew it; Gakupo hadn't supported this idea in the slightest from the very beginning, and telling him that it wasn't going as planned couldn't end well. Still, she figured by this point the best chance for recourse was some kind of honesty.

"Well, to be honest," Luka said, "I never really intended on getting more than one letter from this girl."

The violinist looked puzzled. "And you expected to manage that _how_, exactly?"

"She just looked like she wanted mail, so I decided to send her a letter, all right?" Luka shouted, a bit exasperated. "I thought she'd be fine with just that one, but it's starting to look like she wants some kind of extended correspondence now, and normally that'd be fine, except if I keep sending her letters from a club that doesn't even exist she'll eventually figure out that I'm a phony and it'll all have been for nothing!" She took a breath. "I'm sorry. It's giving me a lot of stress, on top of everything else I have going on."

"All right," Gakupo said. "That's understandable."

Luka's mouth hung open a moment. "You're not upset?"

"You said anything that goes wrong with this would be _your_ problem, not mine," Gakupo said. "No, I'm not upset. I just think you're absolutely out of your mind."

"Thanks, Gakupo," Luka said dryly. "That's much better."

"Don't mention it. You faked the existence of a club dedicated to correspondence and now you're worried about being found out because you actually have a correspondence going on. And you're right to be worried. You ought to have realized the inconsistencies in this plan before you started putting it in action."

Luka sighed. "Come on, I feel pretty lousy about how this is going already. Can't you at least admit I had good intentions? I mean, I wanted to do something _nice_ for her."

"Well, it isn't easy to do nice things if you're not honest in doing them." Gakupo paused a moment, shifting his posture slightly. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to remember Gumi's mail number offhand, would you?"

Luka rolled her eyes. "No, Gakupo, I wouldn't. Didn't you write it down?"

"Yes, but I left that specific paper in my dorm by accident." He frowned. "I guess I'll have to go back and get it after I'm through here. Quite a shame, really. Rather inconvenient."

"Well, thanks for the letter, in any case," Luka said, taking the breach in conversation the moment she saw it. "Have a good time practicing. I mean, practice well."

"I will," Gakupo replied. "And please do be careful with this pen pal of yours, yes? Don't do anything... unreasonable. More than you've already done, of course."

"Thanks," Luka said, trying her best to hide the actual lack of gratitude she held towards the violinist's advice. She hardly needed to be reminded about lacking reasonability by now.

She left the hall of practice rooms in an easy pace, softly humming her aria as she went in a vain hope that it might distract her during the trip.

* * *

_Dear M. L.,_

_So, you know who to send letters to through a sign-up sheet? I think you may have gotten my name on there by accident, then – I don't remember ever signing up for something like this, to tell the truth! But I wish I'd known about it before I got your first letter. If I had, I definitely would've signed up on my own!_

_I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one struggling with this music theory stuff! Sure, I've heard other people in my class say they're having trouble with it, but somehow, hearing someone say how difficult it is so directly is really reassuring. I've heard what you're saying about clubs from other seniors, too, which is why I tried out so many, though I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm in more than I actually have time for. I'll give more thought to the photography club, though, since I would like to do more with it and maybe meet some other people interested in it too. I'm curious, though: are you in any clubs outside of this one? If anonymity is really important, I'd understand if you didn't want to say, but I'd really love to hear more about you!_

_So, you're a voice major, too? That's great! I'm really glad to be writing to someone who knows just what I'm going through here – my friends are mostly string players, so it can be kind of hard to talk them about voice issues and stuff. One time I wore my throat out because I got nervous about a performance test and ended up practicing for three hours straight, and they just didn't get how that could even happen. They said they'd done karaoke for longer than that, so what was I complaining for? But I hope I'm not making them come off as mean-spirited or anything. They're really great friends, they always encourage me and give me great advice. Anyway, thanks for the tips, I'll be sure to follow them as best I can! How do you feel about breath exercises, though? Right now I'm really interested in improving how long I can hold a note, so I was wondering if maybe you had any tips for that, too?_

_Thanks for writing back! It was really fun to get another letter from you!_

_-Hatsune Miku_

Though she'd stopped reading the words on it easily an hour ago, Luka couldn't tear her eyes from off the paper sitting quietly on the desk in front of her. It had that same cheerful spirit from before, that same excitement recorded in ink on a kitten-patterned sheet of stationary. It should have made Luka happy that Miku was still so joyous, still so thrilled that this little scheme had left her with mail. It should have made her satisfied that her plan had given her exactly what she asked for.

But it didn't.

Every happy exclamation point, every curious question mark, every giddy ink stroke was like a weight inside Luka, a little angry devil screaming guilt-laced cries of "I told you so" at the top of its lungs. She knew she was the one who'd told the lies to make the happiness behind those strokes take its unstable form. She knew she was the one who, one way or another, would have to take that happiness away. Her resolve hadn't changed, of course – she still knew that she had to stop the letters, that she had to steer Miku away from this mess of lies before it blew up in her face. Only, that meant extinguishing whatever joy that had birthed those giddy little ink strokes in the first place.

It felt criminal. Worse than criminal, even: damnable, atrocious, any number of immoralities. She could barely fathom pulling herself out of her chair; she contemplated locking herself here in her dorm for the next few weeks as penance.

Or maybe she was exaggerating. These were just letters, after all, and Miku clearly had other means of keeping herself occupied. From the writing, she seemed happy enough even without this bit of correspondence. And really, in the long run Luka was just saving the teal-haired girl a lot of pain and humiliation. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best outcome available, and that had to count for something.

But it was _how_ to end the correspondence that Luka couldn't figure out. She couldn't just outright ask to stop the exchange; it would be too harsh, not to mention too unprecedented given the tone of the previous messages, which in a worst-case scenario could mean Miku seeking out why her anonymous pen pal had so promptly up and quit. Luka toyed briefly with the idea that the Letter-Writing Club actually had a limit of three letters per correspondent, but in the end decided that that rule sounded even more suspicious than an outright rejection. After all, anyone would wonder how a club so unknown would have a rule that so drastically limited the conduct it was based around. No, what she needed was a way to end this cleanly, to leave Miku not so much with the memory of a Letter-Writing Club as the memory of letter-writing and letter-receiving.

And after another forty-five minutes of pacing, pencil-tapping, humming, sighing, growling, and occasional head knocking, Luka began to think that maybe that brilliant solution wasn't coming.

So it occurred to her that maybe Lily and Meiko could be of some help. She sent both a brief text about the situation, and got a response from each in the course of another half-hour of pencil-tapping and humming. Lily's suggested, with tremendous brevity, to just write another letter, following the same philosophy with which the second one was penned; Meiko's amounted to more or less the same thing, though with an additional assertion that she was _not _part of this crazy scheme and didn't entirely appreciate having her Saturday cramming session interrupted with pleas for advice about how to salvage it, thank you very much.

The simplicity of their solution calmed Luka more than she expected. It was perhaps plainer than she preferred, too prone to the same pitfalls that the last plan had suffered, but it was far better than anything Luka had thought of in the past two hours. Besides, it made her wonder if maybe her panic was too prompt, if maybe just one more letter really wouldn't be the end of the world. If anything, she almost wished she could let the correspondence go on for a little longer, that maybe she could learn just a little more about the ever-mysterious Four-Thirty Mail Girl. That had been part of the original intention, hadn't it? To learn a bit more about Miku? But every bone of reason in Luka's body told her being so indulgent would only bring more problems, and the last thing she wanted was for this scheme to end up hurting the girl she'd hoped to cheer up. It would have to end sometime, and it would be best for all concerned if it ended soon.

And so, she wrote out her response. It was shorter than before, as short as it could be without sounding overly terse or dismissive, answering Miku's questions in a way that Luka hoped precluded any bases for further inquiries.

The one place she put any special care into was the final few lines of the note:

_It's truly heartening to hear you've enjoyed getting these past few letters_. _Don't forget you can always write to your friends and family, too! As I hope I've shown, an unexpected letter can do so much to brighten someone's day._

It did enough to imply a close to the correspondence, Luka hoped, while still keeping intact the spirit of the Letter-Writing Club that had been established by the previous messages. It felt _right_, like maybe it could work, like maybe things would turn out well if she just sent this one last letter.

Yet somehow, Luka still couldn't shake that panicked doubt that had froze her in place when she'd first read the kitten-patterned letter sitting in front of her. The feeling bubbled up inside her head and swung at reason and at self-assurance with razor-sharp claws, it kicked and screamed bloody murder while every other thought fruitlessly tried to kill it with silence. As much as she tried to fight it, Luka couldn't stop herself from feeling on edge still. She wondered if maybe there was a better way out that both she and her friends were overlooking, and if in fact the plan she was proceeding with would only bring more problems. Simple implications hadn't worked before, after all. What made anyone so sure they would work this time?

She added another sigh to her collection. If nothing else, she reasoned, she had _one_ plan, and as luck would have it she had one more day to think up something new. The next day was Sunday, and Miku wouldn't miss not getting a letter then. Luka had till the start of the week to find the best way forward.

Standing back up, she slipped her finished message into an envelope and then into her backpack. She only hoped it would be time enough.

* * *

Heavy beats of drum and bass, far more powerful than any bit of treble the rest of the track offered, boomed out from speakers hidden somewhere out of view. How that had been managed, Luka really wasn't sure. The quality of the sound at this volume suggested a model both fairly state-of-the-art and quite large, large enough that it ought to be visible. Unless it was past a wall or something. That wouldn't have been very surprising, given how horribly far from equalized the song itself was.

Luka took a sip from her red plastic cup of Pepsi. She should have been past it by now, given how many times she'd heard it done, but it never ceased to amaze her how conservatory students could manage to screw up sound design so badly. Not that it mattered that much, she supposed. She wasn't paying all that much attention to the song itself, but it was just your generic J-pop track, nothing especially deserving of professional-level speaker rigging. It was mostly the lack of attention to detail that bothered her. If they were going to play music here (and of course they should, given how everybody was expecting there to be some kind of background noise), they should have had the courtesy to play it _well_. That was the entire point of their being at Crypton, Luka had always thought, to learn how to make sounds sound _good_.

"And it's like, you just don't _do_ that, you know? Like, who goes and wastes a whole bottle of the good stuff on just two people, am I right? Dude gets something like that, he oughta just go ahead and get a whole evening together around it, call in half the campus and see who else's got some!"

Ah yes. Speaking of untactful sounds.

Luka snapped back to attention (or maybe just half-attention) to the guy who'd taken the seat next to hers, who was still rattling on about goodness knows what, just as he'd been doing for who knows how long. She barely even remembered how he'd managed to breach the first line of social defenses: maybe it was a compliment about her recital, maybe it was a word about how he'd seen her before at the mail room, or maybe it was just some pick-up line he'd stumbled upon online and found brilliant enough to memorize. Whatever the case, he certainly wasn't making up for his lack of an opening now.

"So you know I say to him, 'What the hell were you _thinking_, man?' I mean, he could've just gone and brought that stuff back to my place, we would've thrown together a_ hell_ of a night, the kind of shindig you _never _forget, you know? And I mean _never_, seriously. Like, not to brag or nothin', but my place is done up _real_ kickass, it's the kind of place where shit can just get _wild_."

He didn't even seem to notice that Luka was more fixed on the swirling motion of her drink than on whatever the hell he was saying. Luka's mind was so far elsewhere that she'd hoped the guy would have had the good sense to have gone away on his own by now, but it was becoming increasingly clear that he couldn't realize when he'd overstayed politeness's welcome.

"Not to diss this party or anything. I mean, it's pretty cool, right? At least they got more than Sapporo, you know? The rum's pretty decent, right?"

Luka decided the guy probably expected some sort of response at this point.

"I wouldn't know," she said, smiling as lusterlessly as she could.

The guy almost froze in shock, but apparently wasn't good enough to stay that way. "What? Don't tell me you haven't gone for any of the stuff that's here! Man, let me tell you, you're missing out. Here, I can give you a hit for that – I'll go pour it right now."

"I'm really fine, thanks," Luka replied, summoning the flat smile back up.

"Well, suit yourself, I guess," the guy said, shrugging. "But, you know..." He leaned in a little closer, the artificial stench of his body wash briefly overpowering the smoke in the air. "If you're a chick who goes for the good stuff – and I mean the _real_ good stuff – I've got a bit I'd be willing to, you know, spare for a pretty girl. Whadaya say? I'll show you what I was talking about when I said I got a kickass place set up."

Finally. The perfect pretense to leave.

"Grow a pair of breasts and I might consider it," Luka said as she stood up. "Thank you for the stirring conversation."

She walked off, the words of protest from the guy not even coming, he was probably hit so hard with surprise. Not very elegant, Luka knew, but suffice to say she wasn't in a particularly elegant mood this fine evening, and being hit on by what she could only hope was the sleaziest guy in the room didn't help all that much. The bass and drums of the still unseen speakers still blared over the rest of whatever track was playing. A comprehensible word or two managed to pierce through the noise: love, desire, baby baby baby you're a burning thorn in me baby baby. Something like that. She wasn't listening all that consciously anymore.

Predictably, Lily was pouring herself a couple of drinks at a makeshift bar when Luka found her. She turned and grinned widely as she saw Luka approach.

"Hey, back so soon?" the blonde asked.

"I just got talked at for I don't know how long by some braggart with about a kilo of cologne on him," Luka said. "He kept going on about what he called 'the good stuff,' and I'm still not sure if he meant sake or his junk."

Lily blinked. "Well, if you want my opinion, he was probably talking about his-"

"I don't _care_ what he meant, Lily!" Luka said. "I'm just not having a very good time, and frankly, I'm starting to wonder why you brought me here in the first place."

"To _unwind_, silly!" Lily said, clapping her roommate on the shoulder. "You've got way too much on your mind, and I think you oughta find some sort of outlet for all that pent up stress. C'mon, you're not still worrying about the Four-Thirty Mail Girl, are you?"

"I'm just not sure if I'm taking this in the right direction, is all..."

"Well, you're not gonna find the right direction feeling so worn out, Luka," the blonde said. "Take a night off for once, _relax_. Just meet a few people and you'll get your mind off this for a little while. Maybe you'll even find some girl you wanna do a bit _more_ than talk with, if you catch my drift."

"You know, you never make it particularly _hard_ to catch."

Lily threw a hand up in defense. "I'm just saying, maybe it'd be good for you. Seriously, a night with a pretty lady does wonders for the wound-up mind. And that's not just me talking – ask anyone."

Luka sighed. "I'm sorry, Lily, but I'm not sure I feel any more up for that right now."

"Aw, don't be like that!" Lily protested. "C'mon, I brought you here to have some fun!"

"I'd be having a lot more fun if you wouldn't leave me alone to get snapped up by the sleezeballs that prowl these things."

"C'mon Luka, you're a big girl, you can take care of yourself. I keep leaving you alone so you can try interacting a little more. You know, branching out?"

"See, I'm not entirely sure how that's going to somehow lead to me not being stressed," Luka said.

"All I can say is that it helps me to forget about the ol' earthly troubles awhile," Lily said. "Well, that and this stuff." She gestured to the eclectic bottles of alcohol behind her. "If you're up for that now, I could help you out, you know. I promise you won't end up puking."

"I'm still fine with the kids' stuff, thanks," Luka said. She swirled the contents of her red plastic cup around again for a moment, taking a sip and then letting out a soft sigh.

"Luka, come on, I hate to see you like this," Lily said. "I meant it, you know: I brought you here because I thought it'd help you out."

Luka stared at the blonde a moment. "Really? That's the _only_ reason?"

"Well, all right, _and_ because I needed somebody to go with me, I admit it. I mean, I couldn't just walk in her by myself, could I? It's one of the few social niceties that actually makes sense."

"And you couldn't have gotten Meiko to come with you because...?"

"Because she wanted to see that Strauss concert the orchestra's playing tonight. But it's just as well, really. You know how she kind of gets in the way of... well, you know."

Luka folded her arms. "Meaning you're here on a rebound."

"What? No!" Lily said in minute protest. "No, it's not a rebound, Luka! I just thought, after certain recent events, it'd be nice to find a few new faces." She took a sip of her drink. "And of course, if I happen to _like_ those new faces, or whatever's below them, then it's not a problem if I act on that, right?"

"And you're not worried about ending up right where you were before?"

"Hey, I never said I was looking for something long-standing," Lily scoffed. "I want what they want: to blow off some steam and spend a nice long evening with a fine young woman. I don't see any problem with that."

"Well, I guess _I'd _want something a bit more stable," Luka said. "Or at the very least, something a bit more mutual."

Lily's face lit up. "So you are interested in _something_, then? That whole 'I prefer girls' speech you gave me way back when wasn't just about admiring 'em from a distance?"

And Luka's face went flush. "Hold on, wasn't this about _you_? Let's get back to talking about you."

"You know, you never were very specific about that," Lily continued, smiling widely. "I mean, you never went on to say what your type is or anything _interesting_."

"Neither did _you_!" Luka protested.

"I was sorta under the impression I didn't have to," the blonde replied. "Now c'mon, you have a type, don't you? Just point at someone in the crowd, give me an idea here."

"You know, this really isn't something I've given a lot of thought–"

"I'm not asking for _thought_, I'm asking for a _reaction_! C'mon, who here would you go for?"

Luka shot the blonde a suspicious frown. "Hypothetically, right?"

"Okay, sure, _hypothetically_," Lily said, drawing out the last word far longer than necessary. "Look, I honestly don't mean anything here. I'm just curious. How about this: throw me this one bone, and I'll stay with you the rest of the night." She paused a moment. "Well, you know, unless this turns out to be a rebound after all. But until then, I promise to stick by ya. All right?"

Luka let out a short sigh. She knew well enough that the final clause of that promise meant she couldn't expect all that much supervision from Lily for the rest of the evening, but since she could just go home once her roommate found a suitable hookup, it didn't strike her as all that uneven a deal. Go home – yes, she _could_ just go home afterward. The place they were in had bedrooms, after all, and Lily always seemed to prefer an on-site job. So to speak.

In any case, it wasn't as if the blonde was asking all that much of Luka, even if it was a bit more publicly than she'd have preferred. Besides, it didn't hurt to actually take a request from Lily seriously every once in a while. Luka practically felt she owed it to her, given how sarcastic she tended to be with the blonde.

"Fine," Luka breathed out. She scanned over the dense crowds of students, ignoring her roommate's burning, impatient, joyful gaze as best she could. After a moment or two she finally raised her finger in a subtle motion. "Her. I'd go for her, I think."

Lily squinted, following the pink-haired woman's gesture. "You mean the short one over there? With the glasses?"

"Sure. She's cute, don't you think?"

"But her boobs are so small."

"So what? She's just petite. It's part of the slim build she has."

"Fair enough, fair enough," Lily conceded, nodding slightly. "Still, I wouldn't have guessed it, Luka: seems you go for the slim, glasses-clad girls. If I didn't know you better, I'd say you've got a fetish or two."

"The glasses aren't a make-or-break point, Lily," Luka said, annoyed. "She just happens to be wearing glasses, and I just happen to think she's cute."

"And the other part?" Lily asked slyly. "You know, the fact that she's built like an ironing board?"

"Again, I just _happen_ to think she's cute, and overall, I think I'd just _happen_ to say I'd go for her

"Out of everyone else in the room?"

"Yes. Fine. Out of everyone else in the room. Now can you please hold up your end of the bargain now?"

"Sounds fine," Lily replied. She almost turned back to the crowd, but hesitated a moment, frowning. "Um... You're not... upset, are you?"

"Not any more than usual."

"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice genuinely warm with concern. "You know, Luka, if you're not actually feeling up for any more of this, we could just go back. I really did mean it when I said I brought you here to try helping you out, so if this is just aggravating you–"

"Lily," Luka cut in, "I'm fine. Really. I'm sorry if I seem a little on edge, it's just... Well, with everything that's been happening, yeah, I _am_ aggravated, and honestly that little push you just gave me didn't help much. But I'm fine with staying a little longer, okay?"

The blonde hesitated another moment. "So, you're cool, right? It's okay if we stick around?"

"I'd kinda like to get the taste of that guy from before out of my mouth, for one thing," Luka said, half-grinning.

Lily's face bloomed with a grin of her own. "Sounds good, then. Hey, what do you say to maybe talking to glasses girl there? I kinda like the looks of that friend she's got with her..."

* * *

_Tick-tock_, said the clock hanging on the mail room wall, each syllable ringing out like thunder in the small, much too confining space.

Luka eyed the the timepiece from behind her desk, tapping out a waltz beat as she hummed a familiar aria. All she gathered from the clock was that it wasn't four-thirty yet. She looked down at her two steadily drumming fingers, fixing her gaze there and only there, letting the bits of sound she was producing fill her senses as best she could.

This afternoon, even the very room itself, felt tense. No, not only tense; it was more eerie, somehow, like the moment before you turned on the lights in a darkened basement in the middle of the night. There were fewer packages to be sorted away than normal for a Monday, and even fewer claimants who had came for them. It was unreasonable for her to be set on edge like this, Luka knew, but there was something about the mail room being emptier than it should be that she never liked. There was a loneliness to it, like a restaurant that never seemed to bring in enough customers during the dinner rush. She found it funny how it was a lack of packages that did that rather than a lack of people. But then again, in the mail room a lack of packages _meant_ a lack of people; a slow day for mail guaranteed a slow day in all other areas.

But there was more to this anxiety, as Luka was oh-so hair-tearingly aware. Among the few items that she'd sorted this afternoon was a letter addressed to one Hatsune Miku, mailbox 3724, return address "The Letter-Writing Club." And inside that envelope, Luka knew, was that note she'd written in a barely-restrained panic in the early afternoon of a very recent Saturday. Even thinking about it now made her almost wince in shame: _that_ was the best plan she'd found in the end. It was so frustrating that she'd left herself with even more anxious waiting, that she'd failed so thoroughly to find any alternative. The letter could be taken a thousand different ways, but only one would end well for all the parties concerned with its drafting, its existence. What way of those thousand it would ultimately be seen in, however, was up to its recipient and its recipient alone.

And that particular recipient, Luka also knew, would be walking in through those double wooden doors at the end of the mail room very shortly. Except, knowing that wasn't much of a comfort right now.

Luka cleared her throat and ceased her drumming. The aria she'd been humming almost nonstop for the vast uninterrupted space that was her shift had grown stale enough to leave her mouth dry. In the absence of that sound there quickly arose the very thing she'd hoped most to avoid: an overwhelming urge to glance back at that ever uncooperative clock. It had quickly become a general rule of hers to avoid looking at the clock as much as possible on slow days. As tempting as it might be to do otherwise, checking it over and over only made her shift move slower, it only showed how there was still so much nothing left to fill with more nothing and how slowly that nothing was doing its job.

That, in large part, was why Miku's arrival had always been an occasion so anticipated; not only did it come before her shift was out, giving Luka something sooner than the end of her shift to fixate on, but the regularity and consistency with which it occurred meant it was just as easy to look forward to. The predictability of Miku's arrival had always been a comfort for Luka, since it meant a reliable break from the doldrums. Miku was the train that ran on time, the TV show a child would look forward to even though she could recite every single episode by heart. She was a familiar face, and one much easier on the eyes than the clock's at that.

None of this really applied today, of course. Today, four-thirty didn't represent a break so much as a deadline, or maybe a summons into the doctor's office for a tetanus shot. Luka was almost afraid Miku would throw down the envelope in disgust the moment she took it from her mail box, that maybe the stench of deception pervading the first two would finally reach the girl this time. Her mind's eye bullied her with the images over and over, and it was all Luka could do to ignore the panic they so readily inspired in her.

A sudden _creak_ of the double doors coming open shot through the confined space. Curiosity and adrenaline smacked Luka's head toward the source of the sound, her eyes wide, her heart racing.

"Hiya Luka," Meiko called, giving a friendly wave as she stepped inside.

The pink-haired woman glanced at the clock. Four twenty-eight, or thereabouts. Naturally.

"Hi," Luka said. "You're, uh... here at an unusual time, aren't you?"

"Well, I thought I'd drop by a little earlier than usual, sure," Meiko said as she meandered toward her mailbox. "See, I ordered this lava lamp the other day, and maybe I'm just being optimistic here, but I'm wondering if it's come already. Only, calling it a lava lamp doesn't really do it justice. It's actually powered by a candle, not electricity – like, you don't plug it in to make the lava goop flow and stuff, you have to light a little tea candle and put that under the glass to get it to work right."

"Don't you already _have_ a lava lamp?"

"Yeah, but the light bulb burned out, and replacing those is going to add up fast." She reached for the knob of her mailbox. "I don't suppose you're going to just _tell_ me if it's in or not, are you?"

"I don't remember anything addressed to you back here," Luka said.

The brunette opened the mailbox door, peered inside, then gave a frown before throwing the door back shut. "Nope. Not here yet. Funny how you actually told me that beforehand, though. Is a certain something eating at you, perhaps?"

"And having you here pointing it out is making things _so_ much better," Luka replied. She paused a moment, scrutinizing her friend's very noticeable lack of movement. "So... Are you done here?"

Meiko blinked. "You honestly can't figure out why I got here when I did?"

"You mean, you're here before four-thirty on purpose?"

"Is there a reason for me not to be?"

Luka's eyes widened. "But... but _she'll_ be here!"

"I'm very aware of that, Luka. I didn't think we called her 'The Four-Thirty Mail Girl' because she delivers packages to all the good little children just before dawn."

"But normally I'm the only one—"

"Luka," Meiko interrupted. "This girl will _not_ be scared off just because there's one more person than usual in the mail room. Okay? Honestly, how you manage to be so overprotective of someone you've never actually met, I don't think I'll ever figure out."

"All right," Luka sighed. "Fine. You're right." She tapped another couple of beats on the desk in front of her. "So, why exactly are you so interested in being here when she comes?"

"Because with all this excitement going on, it occurred to me that I've never actually _seen_ your Four-Thirty Mail Girl," Meiko said. "And all you ever told me and Lily about her is that she seems shy and you think she'd like to get a letter. I've got no idea what she looks like, and I guess I'm curious."

"She's not an animal in the _zoo_, Meiko," Luka said, suddenly annoyed.

"Calm down, it's not like I'm going to throw peanuts at her or anything. I won't even talk to her, I promise. All I want is to get a better sense of just who it is you felt the need to send strange letters to. You know, by setting up a fake club. Is that so wrong?"

Luka huffed. "Well, considering that there's nothing I can say to make you leave, I guess I'm just going to have to accept that." She frowned. "Just, don't _stare_ at her or anything, okay? I meant it when I said she _isn't_ here on display."

Meiko chuckled. "And _now _you're acting like she's your girlfriend or something."

"That's not—"

The door swung open again, cutting Luka off and freezing her in place. Not daring to follow the sound, she glanced at the clock instead. Some seconds past four-thirty. Sure enough, she caught a trailing strand of teal in her peripheral vision and the ringing of hurried footsteps sounding in her ears. On time again, then.

Luka swallowed and finally forced herself to glance over at Miku, who was quickly opening her mailbox door as she stood as tall as she could to reach it. It clicked open, and the teal-haired girl's eyes lit up like stadium lights while an even brighter smile broke across her face. She yanked an envelope out from the mailbox, slamming the door shut as she returned to her natural height, and took a moment to glance over the front of the paper, still wearing that gleeful expression that illuminated the room. As she finished, she stole a look up at the desk across from her, almost frying Luka with the giddiness she exuded. After a moment of inaction, the pink-haired woman returned the smile, which apparently left Miku satisfied to turn back around and exit through the wooden double doors.

The _slam_ reverberated a second or two, and then all was silence. _Tick-tock_, the clock spoke a few more times in the resulting strenuous space.

"Huh," Meiko finally said. "She's a bit smaller than I imagined."

"Hm," Luka grunted, more out of politeness than any real interest in keeping a conversation afloat.

"I guess I can see what you mean about the letter thing, though," the brunette continued. "Seriously, the look on her face back there... Wow. I mean, _wow_. I wasn't that happy when I got an A in music history last year."

"Uh-huh."

"And I guess I also understand a bit better why you're feeling uneasy about everything right now."

"Yeah."

Meiko crossed over to the pink-haired woman and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Well, no matter how it all turns out, at least you made her happy for a little while, right?"

"Not many things can be justified by happiness 'for a little while,' Meiko."

The brunette looked aside. "Well, maybe. But for now, I think letting yourself hope a little would be your best bet." She walked back out towards the double doors, opening them. "I'll see you later, then."

"See you," Luka said as Meiko left the room. In the silence, she tapped a finger on the desk again, but every time signature she pounded out failed to conjure up any song at all. Sighing, she looked back up at the clock. Four thirty-one, now. Still a ways to go. Only Luka felt no urge at all to turn away from the slowly turning plastic hands.

Fine then. Enough rules had been broken today anyhow.

_Tick-tock?_ the clock asked over and over with a light chirp in its voice. Luka answered only with a hard, long stare.

* * *

"I thought you said you were trying to bring this little scheme you're conducting to a close," Gakupo said from over Luka's shoulder.

The pink-haired woman turned around to glance up at him. "What? Why are you bringing that up—" She cut herself off when she noticed the envelope in the violinist's hand. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Another Pandora's letter.

She shut her eyes a moment, taking a deep breath, then took the envelope from him.

"Look, there's no need to panic about this," Luka said. "She could just be saying her goodbyes in this one, okay? Everything could be going just as I planned it out."

"How prudent of you to be so open-minded," Gakupo said. "But I think I should point out that I'm not the one panicking – _you_ are. I still don't have any particular claim to the success or failure of what you've concocted."

"Well then, why the serious tone before? You sounded like you weren't happy that I got another letter."

The violinist looked puzzled. "I didn't think I sounded any different from how I normally do. Did I really sound serious?"

"I thought you did. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your intentions."

"Luka, please," Gakupo said. "There's really no need to be so concerned about all this. Getting upset won't help anything. Not to mention it's disrupting the mood in here. Remember, calligraphy is an art requiring focus, and focus is best achieved in silence, or as near it as we can reach."

"Yes, I'm aware," Luka said, swallowing a sarcastic remark or two. She took a moment to remind herself Gakupo very rarely _meant_ to sound condescending. "I'll just get back to work then, I guess."

Gakupo raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to read it now?"

"Not particularly, no."

He frowned. "Well, if you're sure the thought of it won't distract you, go right ahead. I'm surprised you're holding off on it, though. It seems as if this whole letter-writing business has been the first thing on your mind for the entire past week."

"I'll consider it an exercise in self-discipline," Luka said, smiling a smile that she very much hoped would give Gakupo the idea to go bother someone else for a while.

"How admirable," Gakupo said. "It'd be nice if some of the juniors here could follow your example." He turned around, apparently granting the smile's wish.

The pink-haired woman shoved the letter in her backpack, her brow furrowed as she returned to the sheet of paper sitting in front of her. Others following her example. She wondered if the world could survive amid the resulting levels of dishonesty.

* * *

Luka read the note closely enough when she finally got back to her dorm, but its words barely seemed to register with her. What was most staggering was the sheer number of exclamation points, and of course the bigger number of question marks. Yes, it appeared Hatsune Miku had done the impossible: she'd found more questions to raise, more topics to try to explore even as Luka had so fastidiously tried to tie off every available thread of conversation. Bravo, bravo.

The question of how to move forward now seemed more unanswerable than ever. Trying the same thing over seemed very unlikely to yield different results, and Luka was at an utter loss for alternatives. The solutions she'd rejected some days ago stayed rejected in her mind; outright trying to push Miku away would only hurt her, she was sure, or worse might lead her to look into why this Letter-Writing Club so suddenly decided she was to be told off. Luka was walking a tightrope, a long and arduous one, and she was certain a step forward now would send her toppling down from that precarious height.

So she froze. She sat there at her desk, staring at anything but the Four-Thirty Mail Girl's letter, utterly immobile. Her mind was steaming but kept still, like a running locomotive sitting on an unfinished train track. Time didn't seem to move slower so much as stop entirely, as if inside this one room every clock would stop moving out of pity, or maybe out of judgment.

Luka wasn't _entirely_ devoid of ideas, though. The thought of asking Meiko or Lily for help briefly occurred to her, but was just as quickly brushed aside by the more troubling thought that neither would have any new advice to offer. Still, she might have tried it, if not for the realization that she'd troubled her friends enough with this ordeal already, and neither would have been happy to learn that she'd gotten even deeper in distress.

Still the question of what to do and how to fix this burned bright and cold in every room of her head. But the more and more Luka looked, the more she found she didn't have a way to put that fire out. She could only stare at it, watch it consume and flicker and unrepentantly consume. It was maddening. It made her want to tear, to pound, to curse every curse she'd ever learned. Without moving a muscle, she panicked. Without opening her mouth she screamed in frustration, without a listener she confessed again and again. Completely immobile, she kicked at every wall inside of her, but none so much as budged, let alone offered a new course of action.

And then, she stopped her protests entirely. Her panic ceased, her inward shouts stopped echoing. Suddenly it was quiet inside, quiet not like a temple but quiet like the mail room at four thirty-one in the afternoon. This was not acceptance, not anything remotely close to it, but a realization: Luka could think of nothing to improve the situation, and so perhaps nothing was the only option left. She swallowed hard at the thought, almost winced at it, but she no longer had much hope of recourse. No letter she could write could make it all end well for Miku, so all Luka could think to do was to write no letter at all.

Her breathing ran ragged for a beat or two. This was cruelty, and Luka knew it. If Miku kept expecting, kept hoping that another letter would come, Luka would have have left her in a place just as unhappy as before, if not more so. Instead of waiting for any mail at all, now Miku would be waiting for one letter alone: the one letter that could never come. But anything else, any other sort of response, would only make things worse, Luka was certain. A letter as before would only make the correspondence continue, and a letter pushing Miku away might tempt her to come too close. Either would very likely end with the girl learning the truth, and the thought of that happening was more than either Luka or her conscience could bear.

From that angle, this was a kindness, insomuch as it was a subtler way of telling Miku that both parties should write no more. It meant more pain now in exchange for peace later. And really, as Luka thought about it more, the ending of this correspondence couldn't mean the end of the world to Miku. The girl's life wasn't centered around the exchange of mail; even if she seemed timid, Luka could tell from her letters that she'd adapted well to her new environment at Crypton. She had friends, hobbies, studies, and clubs to fill her life with. All things considered, what did she really need Luka for?

The pink-haired woman gave a sigh. What indeed.

She folded the note back up and replaced it in the envelope, setting it aside on her desk with the intention to never open it again.

* * *

It was quite a relief when work in the mail room picked up the next day. Suddenly there was something for Luka to do: the sorting was practical instead of a futile exercise in obsessive-compulsion, there were people actually flowing in and out of the room who had actual need to go up to the counter and ask something of her. It was days like these that reminded Luka she was actually _doing_ something for her paycheck, and that knowledge helped to give her some sense of her own place in the universe.

Of course, it also helped to distract her. Not very much, but at least in the midst of the sorting and the package claims she had reason to think of numbers other than "four" and "thirty," in that order.

The only problem that the rush presented was how dull it made the resulting silence seem in contrast, especially since Luka seemed to have little choice but to fill it with thoughts of Miku. At least she could laugh at how those had once been comfort. What irony, she thought over and over.

It was funnier still how that lull just happened to land not long before that big hand of the clock pointed straight southward. If only there had been a few more people running about then, asking for their mail, making any kind of noise. Maybe Luka wouldn't have noticed Miku briskly walking into the room at all. Maybe she could have just forgotten this whole ordeal for a few measly minutes of quiet. Maybe.

Every glance Luka stole of the teal-haired girl showed her nothing but the usual. The entering, the reaching, the turning of the dial. Only, she could have sworn there was a certain vigor in it all today, a kind of excitement. There was less nervousness radiating out of her, as if she was more comfortable in the room.

That was kind of funny, too. Luka never thought seeing giddiness could be so painful before.

And then there was that familiar _click_, right on schedule. Miku raised herself up a little higher, peering inside in the mailbox. She frowned. For a moment, the expression seemed confused, a look of hearing a question you wished you knew the answer to. But then her eyes followed the sinking of her lips. Even from afar they screamed disappointment. Like Hachiko finding out his master hadn't come to the station again.

Miku fell back down to the earth below her and swung her mailbox door shut. With a far too familiar timidity, she glanced over at Luka, and in the second that their eyes met Luka saw only questions upon questions billowing up in the teal-haired girl's gaze, in the very room around her. The girl's lips curled momentarily into a smile, but not like before; it was nervous again, forced, a mask instead of a window. Luka forced herself to return it, though she was sure hers looked just as false.

Miku looked away again. The giddiness gone, she pushed open the wooden double doors and left.

The slow _creak_ of the doors closing echoed a moment, until the looming quiet swallowed the noise up. Luka took a deep breath and started tapping away at the desk in front of her. Not in any particular rhythm, not even in any particular time signature. Nobody else was coming in. Even if someone had, Luka wasn't sure they could wipe that look, that gaze of utter disappointment from her thoughts.

Some kindness this had turned out to be.

_Tick-tock_, chided the clock on the wall. Luka wished it would shut the hell up already.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm really not sure what to even think about it, to be honest," Gumi said as she swirled her brush around in the murky depths of her inkstone. "It's just, all of a sudden, a card from him. It's nice, I guess, but I'm not really sure what it means. Like, has he actually known me long enough to go to that kind of effort?"

Luka gave little nods here and there as needed while she listened to her green-haired clubmate speak her piece. It was the sort of spiel where she couldn't tell if and when she was supposed to say anything back, though at the moment she'd decidedly favored the path of least resistance. It was what felt most natural, after all. Somewhere in her head a small teal-haired girl was glumly trodding around the campus, and her melancholia disrupted most every line of speech Luka might have used to reply before the words even had a chance to breathe.

"Okay, I guess it's not so much the card itself. It's more... well, it's more the poem he wrote in it. He called my hair 'a silken lawn of sweetest emerald.' And I guess he knows about those goggles I sometimes go out wearing, because there was something in there about 'twin beacons of rosy light.' Unless he was trying to talk about my cheeks? You know, 'rosy' as in blushing?"

"It could be either," Luka said, finally letting out a thought or two. She couldn't put it past Gakupo to devote part of a poem to a bizarre fashion accessory.

The green-haired girl stared off, resting her chin on one hand and swirling the brush with the other. "It's just kind of weird, I guess is what I'm trying to say."

"Do you feel any better about the character you're drawing now?" Luka asked. She wasn't all that interested in talking about the violinist anymore, and not just because he might be back from the bathroom and within hearing distance any minute now.

"A little," Gumi said, her attention snapping back to the ink-streaked paper in front of her. "I just wish I could put a bit more vibrancy into it though. Do you know what I mean? _Vibrancy_. I don't want the lines to just _sit_ there, they should be _moving_, they should pulse the word out. How else can it be read 'joy,' you know?"

Luka glanced at the paper the other girl was so intently gazing at, again seeing the simplistic, geometric strokes of the character she was so used to turned into something nigh-unrecognizable, the once simple horizontal lines and boxes contorted and skewed every which-away. Not really her forte, this modernist approach, but there was still something fascinating in that kind of expression. Something free, something unconfined. Luka wanted to reach out and grasp that character, to let its meaning and the spirit held in its lines flow over her from a shower head. But in the back of her head she wondered if even that could wash away the guilt still crusted deep in her skin.

What had been plaguing Luka yesterday was only eating away at her more voraciously now. Today too Miku had stayed true to her nickname, and today too she'd left the mail room with a look of utter disheartenment. What was different was how the teal-haired girl had looked before she found that her mailbox was empty again; there wasn't the bit of spring in her step that had been there before, and any confidence she'd displayed had relapsed far back into crushing nervousness. The glances she stole at Luka were with eyes filled with discomfort, and the genuine smile Luka still longed to see never came again. That alone was heartbreaking. Never again would Luka see that girl's eyes so uplifted, so beaming and bright. Never again would she see that grin that burst out with sunshine with the smallest lift of the lips.

But it was all for the best, Luka reminded herself. At least now, with the letters cut off so early, Miku could have a chance to accept the loss, to rid herself of any attachment she'd formed. She was safe now from all the pain the truth would have brought her. And none of this was fated to be very stable, anyway. It was like Gakupo said: Luka had made up a club based on keeping up correspondences when in fact she had no real to claim to keeping up any.

Now all Luka hoped was that Miku could find a way to look back on it all with fondness, in time. If nothing else it'd make a funny story.

"Back in college, I once got this weird letter in the mail," Miku would say to her friends, coworkers, dates. She'd say how excited she was to finally get mail after longing for it so long, and how strange it was that it was from a club she'd never heard of before, and stranger still how after she wrote back three times the responses stopped coming. But then she'd assure her listener that it was still something she was glad had happened, that she'd long since overcome any disappointment she'd felt back then. She'd say how she still had all the letters she'd gotten back and how she still could vividly recall the kitten-patterned stationary she'd saved just in case she ever got a chance to mail a letter of her own. And then Miku and her friends, coworkers, date would all chuckle to themselves and playfully wonder just who it was that would do something so strange.

The thought should have relieved Luka, but there was something about it that only left her dejected. It should have felt warm and satisfying, like you felt after holding a door open for a stranger, like any good deed felt, something to be smiled at for a moment and then left alone. Only the thought, the scene _in_ the thought, was leaving _her_ alone. It felt distant and impenetrable, as if she were watching it play out through a one-way mirror, as if she were listening to it through glass and water. Even in her own head, the girl Luka had wanted to get to know was unreachable.

"But then again, I guess it's not really calligraphy if you can't actually read the character, huh?" Gumi said with a twinge of reluctance, the sound snapping Luka back to duty. "What do you think, Luka? Can you read it at least? Like, if I hadn't told you the character, you'd be able to tell which it is, right?"

"I said I couldn't tell what it was when I first saw it, remember?" Luka said. "I don't think there's a problem with experimenting, but there's such a thing as overdoing it."

"But you get what I'm trying to do, don't you?" Gumi said. "I don't just want the character to convey the meaning – I want the _lines_ to convey the meaning. Sort of like a symphony, but written."

"Like a... symphony?"

"Ah, I guess that doesn't make much sense," the green-haired girl chuckled. "What I mean is... well, when a symphony doesn't have a vocal part, there's no way for words to go with the music, but there's still a feeling that gets projected. And that's because emotions don't _have_ to travel through words alone – with a symphony, they travel through the music, through the strings and the horns and the percussion. The music finds a way of going above language to convey feeling."

"I see," Luka said. As colorful as the girl's metaphor was, she wasn't all that interested in that tired old aesthetics lecture that apparently half the instrumentalists had simultaneously figured out upon entering the conservatory. When the deans weren't encouraging the idea, that is.

"But you're probably wondering how that gets back to calligraphy, right?"

"You did kind of leave that point hanging," Luka remarked with a bit of curiosity.

"Well, it has to do with that same kind of sentimentality, only here, I want the character to facilitate that wordless feeling," Gumi explained. "I want the character to be as genuine as possible, to not just _say_ 'joy' but actually _mean_ 'joy.' I want to use language to overcome its own the pitfalls by making the character itself a bit more abstract in composition."

"Pitfalls?"

"You know, like how what somebody says can be misinterpreted, or how words can mask true feelings even when you aren't technically lying. Words mean more than the words themselves, so we have to decode them before we can get what the speaker really _meant _in saying them, and they get decoded in funny ways sometimes, or maybe they're _supposed_ to be decoded in a funny way, and then maybe we get too wrapped up in the decoding itself and the meaning and feelings that sparked the words just poof away. So basically, I want to use the direct approach of art to work alongside that decoding approach, to just lay down the feeling in ink at first, except it also says that same feeling through the character. If that makes sense."

"No, I think I follow you," Luka said, trying to keep herself from staring. "Though I think maybe you should have found a Zen temple instead of this club."

Gumi frowned. "But I can't learn the piano at a Zen temple."

"Something tells me you wouldn't enjoy the monastic life, anyway," Luka chuckled. "But you've got solid ideas. I should think Gakupo can help you with them more than I can."

"If you say so," Gumi said. "It's just, you know... That _card_..."

"Stay professional and he'll do his best to act the same," Luka replied. "Though if you do end up teasing him a little for it, I don't think anyone can blame you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I almost didn't see you."

Speak of the devil. Not a moment later, Gakupo's voice came in from just past the ajar door, slightly muted yet still clearly audible.

"No, it's all right... I was a little distracted."

But so did another one. A girl's voice, high and vibrant and smooth, a voice like honey.

"Were you looking for this room, perhaps?" Gakupo's voice came again.

"I think so... The number's right, except I'm not sure if the right club is in there." The girl's voice rippled with laughter, like children splashing around in a brook, lovely despite its self-consciousness.

"Have you checked the room's schedule? What you're looking for should be there."

"Yes, I _did_ check, except it's not there. Even the other clubs I asked hadn't heard of it."

Luka's eyes snapped wide, _wide_ open.

"Uh, Luka, you okay?" Gumi asked as she looked up from her canvas. "You look so pale all of a sudden."

The pink-haired woman forced a smile and shook her head, not taking her attention away from the outside even for a moment.

"Er... And just what club are you looking for?" Gakupo asked, trepidation in his voice.

"Oh, I guess I should've said that from the beginning." The self-conscious chuckle again. "It's something called 'The Letter-Writing Club.' Ever heard of it?"

Luka almost fell over in her chair. A thousand sirens screamed a nationwide disaster in her head, and through their noise she prayed and prayed that for once Gakupo might, _might_ find in himself some semblance of rationality.

"Why... Why, er, there's somebody in there that can help you with that, as a matter of fact."

She normally didn't like to think of herself as the type who held a grudge, but Luka found it extremely difficult to keep herself from composing a revenge list that very instant. A revenge list with just one name. A name bolded, underlined, and, if necessary, highlighted.

"Really? Thank you so much!"

Luka's various thoughts for an escape plan were rudely interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open. In a panic, she whirled her head around, where she found staring back at her a shockingly familiar face. One giving the best impression of an acrophobe looking off the top of Tokyo Skytree that Luka had ever seen.

"H-Hello," Miku stuttered.

"Hi," Luka managed to answer.

The teal-haired girl broke her impression and glanced at the ground. "Um... The guy outside said... Well, he said that there was someone in here who..."

"Someone in here who what?" Gumi asked, finally turning around herself. "Oh, hey, you're new. Come to join?"

"I... Um, the thing is..."

"There's no need to be shy," Gumi said. "Sure, it's kinda late in the semester, but we're always glad to get new people. Right, Gakupo?"

The violinist had apparently slipped in unnoticed somewhere in this mess. Luka regretted missing it, if only for the pyrotechnic glare she could have shot him.

"Luka, would you mind sorting her out?" Gakupo said.

Another perfect occasion for that glare, but Luka found herself preferring to just save face instead. Meaning that she just kept staring at the teal-haired newcomer like a cat at a vacuum cleaner.

"Sorting her out?" Gumi repeated, confused. "You mean she's not here to–"

"_I'll_ take care of it, Gumi," Luka finally said, cutting her off. She glanced back at Miku, though now with less panicked felinity in her gaze. "So, uh, could you just follow me a second? It'd be better if... if we had our own table."

"Okay," Miku answered, her eyes still the size of dinner plates.

Luka led the girl over to the far side of the room, where a spare desk or two sat near the window. As she went, the pink-haired woman found a moment to finally slip Gakupo that glare she'd been saving up. The violinist responded only with a shrug and a slightly apologetic frown. Not quite guilt, but Luka supposed it would have to suffice.

"So, then," Luka said as she sat down, "can I help you?" She'd replaced her look of shock by now with a smile - one not all that stiff, she desperately hoped.

The teal-haired girl lowered herself into the next seat over. "Um... Well, you're in the Letter-Writing Club, right?"

"Yes!" Luka immediately replied, a bit too loudly. "Yes, yes, of course I am. I mean, that's why you're talking to just me right now, isn't it? Because, you see... er, nobody else here is involved in that club." She wondered for a moment where she was going with this, but impulse quickly took over. "They're all in the Calligraphy Club. Which, I'm sort of in too, actually. The Letter-Writing Club is quite small, you understand, so we could only manage to, uh... Well, to share this room. With the Calligraphy Club."

"Oh," Miku said, looking far more accepting of that explanation than any human being ought to be. "So, is nobody else from the Letter-Writing Club here right now?"

"Sometimes they leave a little early," Luka answered after a beat. "I mean, it _is_ almost six already." And it was – she'd glanced at the clock just before sitting down. Not to mention a few of the others in the room, after tearing themselves away from the new commotion, had started to pack up their things.

"So they leave you all alone?" Miku asked, more concerned than confused.

"I'm the only member of the Letter-Writing Club who's in the Calligraphy Club, too," Luka hastily explained. "I mean, I figure they're kinda similar, right? Letter-writing and calligraphy."

Miku furrowed her brow. "Um... They do both involve writing..."

"So you see what I mean," Luka said. "And besides, I'm not all alone, since I'm in the other club that meets here, too."

"That sounds like a hassle, though," Miku mused. "Not even getting a club room of your own..."

"No, it's fine, really," Luka quickly said. "I mean, like I said, there aren't many of us, and we're... well, we're a _really_ new club, so we don't have much precedent to claim a room of our own when other groups could want them." She paused. "Actually, to call us a 'club' is sort of a stretch – we're more of a loose organization, really. I was the one who managed to talk the president of the Calligraphy Club over there into using this room for our meetings, since we didn't want to have to go through the hassle of registration and everything else. You know, making a club is... well, it's complicated."

"I see," Miku said, still apparently unable to maintain eye contact.

"Sorry, I got a little off-track," Luka said. "So, did you need something?"

"It's not a big deal, really," the teal-haired girl said in a small voice. "Um, see, I was getting some letters from your club – I mean, from somebody_ in_ your club..."

"Were you now?" Luka asked, hoping she sounded surprised.

"Yes. Anyway, the thing is, normally they'd been coming every other day or so – or pretty quickly, I mean – only I didn't get anything yesterday or today, so I guess I think that's a little strange, and I'm wondering if maybe I did something wrong or if maybe you only mail so many letters per person or something?" Miku laughed that short, self-conscious laugh of hers again. "Sorry. I'm pretty sure you're busy, and you probably don't want to deal with this kind of thing..."

"No, it's okay," Luka reassured her. Something about the way the other girl spoke made Luka want to reply on the spot, to somehow try to stop the quivering in her voice. "You know, uh, we don't get too many visitors, to be honest."

"Really?" Miku asked.

"Really. Mail is just mail to most people, after all," Luka said. "But I'm glad to see you think otherwise," she quickly added.

"Yeah," Miku said, laughing a bit.

"And I guess this must be funny, too," Luka went on. "I mean, my being here when I also work in the mail room. I ought to have enough to do with letters as it is, right?"

The teal-haired girl's eyes shot wide open again, and a hint of red rushed into her face. "The... the mail room?" She glanced down, her lips almost quivering with some horrible trepidation. "You mean, you... you noticed that I... I mean, that I'm always-"

"No, no no no, it's fine, it's _really_ fine," Luka said in a bit of a panic. So trying to cover her tracks had made things even more awkward. Great. "I just tend to notice people who come up on my shift, and you... I mean, you're in the mail room sort of, you know, consistently, and it's not that interesting of a job most of the time, so I just tend to remember people who actually check their mail a lot. Which, mind you, isn't a whole lot of people."

Well, at least that last part was honest.

"Ah." Miku scrunched up the hands she'd stuck firmly in her lap, not so much as taking her eyes off of them. "Okay."

A chair or two scuffed the floor and brush handles clinked together as they were stowed away. The students heading off said nothing as they stepped out the door and then slid it back shut.

"So," Luka finally spoke up, "you were saying something about... not getting letters anymore?" She didn't want to get back into this topic – really, she didn't even want to _think_ about it anymore – but anything would be better than this fanged quiet hovering over them with jaws wide.

"Right!" Miku cried as she looked back up, though her gaze still wasn't quite meeting Luka's. "Um, I mean... Yes, I haven't gotten a letter back from your club and I guess I was... wondering about that. Why that is, I mean. That is, unless you're actually working on it and you're just busy or something, in which case I'm sorry I came by and bothered you with this, it's just I kinda thought the standard was to get them every other day, and I'd never heard of you before so I don't know what's normal for getting letters." She took a breath. "Yeah. That's more or less it, I think."

"Well, it might have gotten lost in the mail or something," Luka replied. She almost cursed at herself; lost in the mail? That age old excuse?

But then she thought for a moment at this, the awkward atmosphere granting the opportunity. If nothing else, what the "lost in the mail" route had going for it was that it provided a way to start the correspondence up again, which, as Luka considered it, didn't seem all that terrible an idea. She'd been playing everything out so far under the impression that the less contact Miku had with "The Letter-Writing Club," the less she'd want to do with it, and by consequence the less chance she'd have to learn of its nonexistence. Only, since she'd gone this far to actually get her letters again, trying to just let the correspondence go again would be idiotic. It would only make the the club itself more questionable, and the circumstances of the letters more suspicious.

Not to mention... Somehow, as Luka actually saw her Four-Thirty Mail Girl up close, awkwardly hunched over at the edge of her seat, she couldn't bear the thought of disappointing her. If anything she wanted to brush the stray strands of hair out of the girl's face and then give her a gentle pat on the head for good measure. It wasn't as if Luka had never felt this way before, of course – she'd always been bothered by the thought of letting the teal-haired girl down – but before the image of a saddened Miku had only been like a stern schoolteacher, berating Luka for stealing from a younger girl's lunchbox. It was unpleasant, even guilt-inducing, but it was still a feeling she thought she could overcome, in time. Only _now_ it was like the poor lunchbox-deprived girl herself was here in front of Luka, ready to cry her eyes out not so much at the fact that she'd been hurt, but more because she'd learned firsthand that such cruelty could exist in the world. The thought terrified Luka more than she'd thought possible. It filled her with the kind of guilt that could never be apologized away, the kind that billionaire philanthropists couldn't hope to repent. She could only see herself regretting it if she left the girl with anything but a smile on her face.

"Anyway, I can... I mean, I can make sure it gets to you," Luka continued. "I'm sorry about that. We do prefer to be punctual about responding, you know. Because..." She trailed off a moment, only this time the words that came up in that gap felt genuine. "Because it's a wonderful thing when people write back. Don't you think?"

Luka smiled her first real smile since the conversation had began. Miku glanced up to see it, only to break off the eye contact immediately, fidgeting in her seat a little.

Except, she was smiling too. Slightly nervous still, but also so strangely... real.

"I do," Miku said. "Yes, I do think it's... wonderful."

Luka smiled a little wider. The rest of the club members had left the room by now, she noticed, and somehow the air around her felt less constricting – not more open, but softer, a kitsch-decorated guest room instead of a child's plywood clubhouse. As good a moment to leave off on as any, Luka figured.

Except, the farewell forming in her head was suddenly slapped away. Why hadn't she seen this before? At long last Luka was talking – actually _talking_ – to the famous Four-Thirty Mail Girl herself, the girl she had been so utterly interested in that she'd hatched this ludicrous scheme in the first place. And now here they were, in something close to a comfortable atmosphere, and she was just going to let the girl go. Sure, now they knew each other, there would be some pretense for a word or two when Miku inevitably stopped by the mail room later on, but an opportunity was staring Luka in the face, and she could already picture kicking herself in the future for not taking advantage of it – at least, after Meiko and Lily had had their go.

So enough of lies and schemes, she thought. They could stand to be genuine with one another for just a bit longer.

"Anyway," Luka said, "I was going to have dinner about now."

The teal-haired girl's smile quickly faded. "Oh," she said. "Right. It _is_ getting kinda late..."

"Care to tag along?"

Her eyes rocketed upward to meet Luka's, doing their acrophobe act again. "You... You mean..."

"If you already have plans, that's fine," Luka said. "Or if you just don't want to. But since we're both here anyway..."

"I'd love to!" Miku shouted. She looked up in shock again, this time with her hands momentarily plastered over her mouth in embarrassment. "I mean... Yes, I'd like to. That sounds fine."

Relief seeped through Luka like tea through water, but she only let another small smile show through. "Great. Now come on, the crowds will start to get thick soon."

They both stood up, only for the look of terror to greet Miku's face again.

"Wait," she said. "I'm sorry, but... I mean, I never actually introduced myself, did I?"

Oh, right. Luka thought she was forgetting about something. It would have taken quite a few years of psychic training for Miku to have figured out on her own about the whole mail roster business. Luka breathed an inward prayer or two she hadn't let the name slip in conversation before.

"I'm Hatsune Miku," the teal-haired girl said. "Um... And you're–"

"Megurine Luka," Luka answered. "Nice to meet you."

"Yes," Miku said. "Right." She scanned the floor in front of her a moment. "So... We were getting food? Together?"

Smiling again, Luka slid open the clubroom door. "Anything you're in the mood for, Miku?"

* * *

As they walked, they ended up learning that they considered themselves more or less equally empty-pocketed and settled on the cafeteria. Fine enough for a first real meeting, Luka thought, though in her heart she couldn't help but breath a sigh of regret. Or maybe it was in her stomach. Campus food wasn't nightmarish, no, but it was still a toss-up between relatively decent and unashamedly bland, and anyone's guess as to which would be the result on any given day was about as reliable as a seismograph installed in a DDR machine. Still, the food was reasonably fresh and even more reasonably priced, which left neither of the girls very much room for argument.

The lines weren't too long when they arrived, and by some remarkable blessing they even managed to find an empty table. The best-looking item on the day's menu – tonkotsu ramen – didn't look half bad on their trays, though experience had already done enough to teach Luka not to call judgment on the meal from looks alone.

"So, you were saying that you're a voice major?" Luka said as she snapped her chopsticks at the ready. It was a little surreal, going through the ice-breaking questions when she already knew the answers, but she reminded herself it was a necessity.

"Right." Miku snapped apart her own chopsticks. "Um... You are too, right?"

Luka almost chuckled. "How'd you guess?"

"Well, you know, I guess you just... have that kind of air about you, you know? I mean, you just sorta seem like you'd be a vocalist."

"I took the piano for a while, too," Luka said. "Of course, by now I'm not half as good as I was when I was eight. To my credit, I can still play with both hands."

"Wow," Miku said, genuinely impressed. "Do you... still find time to practice, or do you just, you know, remember it?"

"I try to keep it up when I get the chance. There are so many pianos around it'd be a waste to forget how to play while I'm here."

Miku laughed. A real laugh, even, for once more jovial than nervous. "I almost feel lucky I only ever studied singing – keeping up two instruments here must be torture."

"Well, I keep in mind that I'm only graded on _one_ of them," Luka replied. She slurped up a first bite of the ramen. Not half bad. So about as good as it looked. Fair enough. "So, how'd you get into singing?"

"The usual way," Miku said. "My parents wanted me to play something when I was growing up, and all the idols and the pop stars and people on TV sang, so I thought singing would be the most fun."

Luka froze in place, a strand of ramen dripping broth back into the bowl as it dangled unfurled above it. "You... wanted to be like an idol?"

"I mean, I didn't know just how much work singing was back then," Miku said. "All I saw was the dancing and the glamor and the flashy costumes. Oh, and the songs. I was heartbroken when my parents put me into a choir – I thought I'd be singing _pop_. You know, the songs I already knew."

"Huh," Luka said, trying to let her surprise drop. The girl was so timid, it was nearly impossible to think of her as a flashy pop diva. Though of course she would be relatively over stage fright by now, studying where she was studying. It was more that the personas didn't match up. The Miku in front of Luka could barely hold eye contact – was there actually another side to the girl that could dance around a stage in some cute, miniskirted uniform? In fairness, Luka could imagine it – it was even sort of fun, actually – but it felt too fantastical to expect it to actually _happen_.

"But, I guess it's kinda obvious I got over that somewhere down the line," Miku went on. "Choir was really fun. I made a lot of friends, and I even started to appreciate classical music as I kept singing it. So eventually I started to learn solo voice, too, and eventually I ended up auditioning for Crypton."

Luka swallowed a bite. "I don't suppose you're still entertaining that thought, are you? Of being in the pop industry, I mean."

The teal-haired girl laughed, still more color seeping into the noise now. "Not so much as before, no. I mean, like I said, singing classical really grew on me. But then again I guess getting that kind of training means you're ready for most any genre, huh?"

"It's quite a shift, though," Luka said. "Going from idols to arias. I guess I just don't see that same kind of glamor in the sort of music we're being taught to sing. Not that it needs it, of course," she quickly added. "Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," Miku said. "But... Well, I think it can still have glamor, in its own way." Leaning over her bowl a little, she gathered up several clumps of noodles. "With the right people, anyway," she said softly.

She scarfed down a giant mouthful of the ramen. Luka almost peered over into the teal-haired girl's bowl to see how much was left – it looked like she'd eaten half the portion in one go.

"Sorry, I'm talking so much about myself," Miku said. "So, um... How come you know two instruments?"

"One lead to the other," Luka explained. "I started out with piano lessons, actually, like mom wanted me to. I didn't mind it, but I was never really all that interested in it. Sure, I'd listened to concert pianists before, I'd heard what they could do, and that always made me think how great it'd be to be able to play like that... But somehow, I suppose I knew that it wasn't my instrument."

"And... your voice was?" Miku asked.

"Maybe that's not the right way of putting it," Luka chuckled. "I mean, I wasn't even an adolescent, I wasn't thinking that deeply." She took a sip of her ice water. "My piano teacher was the one who made me realize I wanted to sing. See, she sang and played – both really, _really_ well, too – and she'd taught me to try vocalizing while on the piano, to help get a better idea of the music itself. And it was just a little thing, but... I guess I started to find myself paying more attention to how I was vocalizing than how I was playing. Although my teacher ended up noticing that before I did."

"She wasn't upset, was she?"

"She was _furious_," Luka said, smiling at the memory. "She must have berated me for ten minutes straight that lesson. 'I told you to use that for your _playing_, and here you are doing it the other way around!' she said. It terrified me, to be honest. I'd never seen her so mad."

"But she forgave you, right?"

"More than that. When she came to her senses, she thought maybe that meant that I actually liked singing better, and I ended up having an hour-long voice lesson instead of playing Bach."

"That must have caught you off-guard," Miku mused.

"Well, it was a pleasant surprise – I hadn't practiced all week."

They both laughed. There something fantastic, even musical in that shared sound, more like a duet than a mere overlap of voices; Luka swore she felt somehow attuned with Miku, maybe for the first time since she'd met the girl, like for a moment they'd both struck down their barriers to let the other in.

"So from then on," Luka resumed, recovering from the laughter, "she'd spend more and more time on voice and less and less time on piano. And I think that's because she knew I really wanted to sing even before I did. She had this way of reading people that I could never figure out. She always knew just how I was feeling, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, and then she could deal with it in a way that would actually work."

Miku smiled wryly. "And what way would that be? Unless that's classified."

"No, no, we're this far already," Luka laughed, "there's no need for the initiation rites."

"Fair enough," Miku giggled. "So then, how? You know, what'd she... do, exactly?"

"It was just how she acted," Luka explained. "She knew how to encourage me with everything she said, because she knew when to be stern and when to give out praise. It sounds simple, I know, but it was a fine line to walk when you're teaching a somewhat stubborn young girl."

Miku looked up, surprised. "Stubborn?"

"Sure," Luka replied. "I was the sort of girl who would find a way of doing something and then refuse to do it any other way, no matter what any so-called experts said about it." She held up her right index finger. "Like how even after I was taught the proper fingering on a piano, I played it with just this finger every time I practiced for the next few weeks. It felt easier, so I was sure it worked better."

"Wow," Miku said. "That's... interesting."

"You seem surprised," Luka remarked.

"No, it's just..." The teal-haired girl took a long gulp of her water. "Sorry. I guess I always sort of pictured you differently. Like a..." She frowned. "Well, like the kind of person who grew up acing every test she took. If that makes sense."

Luka blinked. "Really?"

"Sorry," Miku said, tapping the table with her chopsticks a couple times. "It's just kind of the impression I had of you, I guess. I, um, can't really explain it. I mean, it's hard to explain how I thought that way."

"You got that kind of impression of me just from the mail room?" Luka asked, laughing a little in disbelief. The idea was just so hard to fathom. She'd been an above-average student, sure, but never spectacular in her studies. All that had really held her passions, her interest, was music, and that's where she'd put her greatest efforts, but it wasn't as if Luka considered herself some sort of virtuosa. Saying she was even close to perfect at anything made her want to immediately run back to the soothing shade of modesty.

"Well..." The teal-haired girl kept on tapping for a few moments, looking off with a look of pensive anxiety. "To be honest, the mail room wasn't the first place I saw you."

Luka froze mid-bite. "...Really?" she said, lowering her chopsticks.

"Well, sure," Miku replied. "I mean, you had that recital around orientation week."

"Oh, that?" Luka asked, less confused. "Huh. Well, I guess that explains how you knew I'm a vocalist, doesn't it?"

The teal-haired girl's eyes went wide, practically fearful all of a sudden. "I, uh... I mean, that was just..."

"Don't worry about it," Luka said, swallowing the urge to inquire further. She reminded herself to tread a little lighter. "Anyway, I'm actually really surprised you'd remember me from _that -_ I was only onstage for a single aria. Not that I blame them, of course. It wouldn't have been proper to have given the more important pieces to a second-year."

"Yours was very important!" Miku cried. She stuck her hands over her mouth again, her look of concern quickly exchanged for one of horror. It was an overcompensation though, Luka thought. It wasn't as if anyone had glared at the teal-haired girl or anything.

"...I mean," Miku resumed, "I think your performance... well, it did a lot for the show. It had a big impact."

Luka smiled, maybe the most naturally since she'd sat down. "You think so?"

"I do!" Miku almost-shouted again, only this time she didn't seem to feel the need to take a moment to repent the transgression. "I mean, I remembered you from it, so if anything, it had an impact on _me_."

"I don't know what to say," Luka said, still smiling. Somehow she found her need for modesty failing at the sheer enthusiasm the teal-haired girl was putting on display. It would have been like wanting to scold a puppy for wagging its tail too much.

"And I wasn't the only one, either," Miku added. "Everybody I saw it with really liked you, too."

"As much as you did?" Luka asked slyly.

Miku's face went flush. "Um... Well, okay, maybe not _quite_ as much as I did, but..."

"It's all right," Luka said, laughing. She almost regretted being so playful – it didn't seem to be helping the girl feel any more at ease. A change of subject seemed in order. "So, I don't suppose you have any recitals coming up?"

Miku shook her head. "Oh, no, no I don't. I mean, I'm only a first-year."

"That doesn't negate the possibility," Luka replied. "Sure, solo performance isn't as available, but there's still choir and such."

"Right, right, choir," Miku said in recollection. "Sorry, I guess I wasn't thinking of that. I mean, I _am_ in one. Our next show isn't for a little while, though."

"Well, be sure to let me know when it is. I'd love to come out and see it."

"Oh." She slurped up another mouthful of ramen, glancing aside. "Are you sure? I doubt it'll be anywhere near as good as what you normally hear around here..."

"I'm sure you'll do fine. Besides, I'd love to hear you sing sometime." Luka chuckled. "Though I guess a choir performance isn't the best place to fulfill that, is it?"

Miku had frozen mid-bite. "You... want to hear _me _sing?"

"Why not? You've got a lovely voice."

Miku couldn't seem to look back up after that. Luka scolded herself inwardly; maybe that was just a commitment too far for the girl.

"Sorry, this is probably a lot for a first meeting," Luka said, backpedaling. "I really don't want to put any undue pressure on you or anything." An awfully blunt apology, but she figured she still hadn't overplayed her hand.

"No, it's fine, really," Miku said, finally jerking her head back upright. "I mean, I'm here to learn how to perform. It'd be silly to get embarrassed about it."

"It's not silly at all. Performing is a very personal thing; to do it well, you more or less have to bear your own soul out on a platter for your audience. I don't think anyone ever completely gets over stage fright, to be honest."

Miku frowned. "Does that include you? I mean... do you get stage fright, too?"

"Sure," Luka replied. "It's not as much as I used to have, but I still get a little nervous just before I step out in front of an audience. And the weird thing is, it might even be worse when the crowds are smaller."

"Really?" Miku asked, confused. "But the smaller the audience, the fewer people to worry about, right?"

"In theory, yes. Only, when I performed for larger audiences, I found I could just think of them as a big mass of people rather than a group of individuals, and that made it easier to phase them out. Performing for a smaller audience makes it harder to ignore the fact that there are individual people looking right at you, since they don't have much of a crowd to disappear into." Luka took another sip of water. "I suppose I'm getting a little long-winded by now, but my point is that there's nothing wrong with feeling embarrassed about performing, even if it's only for one person."

"Ah," Miku said, laughing a little. "I guess when you say it like that, yeah, you're right."

"Just don't feel like it's unnatural," Luka replied. "It's not as if we _want_ to bear all of ourselves all at once to strangers, after all." She slurped up some more ramen. "That being said, if you don't mind me hearing you, I'd still love to hear a performance of yours."

Miku swallowed another mouthful, her eyes turning pensive. "Well... I guess if you put it that way..."

"Only if you're fine with it," Luka emphasized, maybe a bit more condescendingly than she'd have preferred. "I'd understand if this is a bit much."

"No, really, it's fine," Miku said, smiling a little now. "Anyway, I'd have to double check, but I'm pretty sure we do another show on–"

"Yo, Luka!"

The pink-haired woman jolted her head in the direction of the sound. Walking up to greet her was a brown-haired woman, grinning broadly, waving with one hand and holding aloft a tray in the other.

"Hey, I was just about to text you!" Meiko said as she galloped over. "I wish you'd told me you were getting here earlier, then I'd have–" She froze mid-sentence as she finally stopped by the table, her widened eyes fixed firmly on the teal-haired girl sitting there. Who had started fidgeting in her seat again.

"Hello?" Miku said, smiling an incredibly uncomfortable smile.

"...Oh," Meiko said. "So, Luka, you actually... You know, you're having dinner with–"

"Someone new, yes," Luka cut in. "Miku, this is my friend Meiko. Don't mind her, she's just a little surprised to see me with someone new." She turned over to the brunette, shooting her a private glare. "_Right_, Meiko?"

"Right," Meiko replied. "Uh, yeah. Yep, that's definitely it. A real order of yepperoni."

"Hello," Miku said, her smile a bit less anxious now.

"This, uh, isn't a bad time or anything, is it?" the brunette asked.

"No, no, of course not," Luka said. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, I'm sorta finished," Miku pointed out, gesturing to the near-empty bowl in front of her.

"Oh," Luka said. "Well, you know, there's no need to stick around on account of us."

Miku frowned. "Are you sure? I mean, Meiko just got here, so–"

"No, it's fine, really," Luka interrupted. "You're probably busy, right? We don't need to keep you here." Another private glance. "Do we, Meiko?"

"No, we don't," Meiko said flatly. "No intentions to impose on your day from us, nope, not in the slightest. That's a right negatory we're giving there, sergeant."

Miku didn't look any more comfortable. "If you say so," she said, standing up. "Oh!" She sat back down. "Um, before I go... Well, you know, I didn't get to tell you when the concert date was, and I don't know when I'll get another chance to, so..."

Luka blinked. "Well, you could always tell me in the mail room, couldn't you?"

"Right!" Miku almost-shouted again. Her eyes widened and she glanced an apology at Meiko, who didn't seem to know how to respond. "Right, yeah, that's true. There's still the mail room, right."

"...Did you have a different idea?" Luka asked, a bit hesitant.

"Well, I guess we don't need it so much now," Miku said, "but I was sorta thinking you could give me your cell number. I mean, if that's okay."

"I'm just going to assume it's all right if I sit down now," Meiko said, sitting at an empty seat.

"Of course it's okay," Luka replied, smiling. "Here, I'll punch it in for you."

Grining again, Miku handed Luka her phone, and she spent a moment or two tapping at the screen.

"And there you go," Luka said. "Feel free to keep in touch, okay?"

"Sure!" Miku chirped. She was smiling naturally at last, bright and clear, the grin as vivid and punctuating as the cheerful word of agreement she'd just sang. Taking her tray in hand, she rose back up. "So, I guess this is a 'see you later'?"

"Sounds fine to me," Luka replied, chuckling at the awkwardness of it all. "See you later!"

Shooting back one last glimpse of the sunny grin, Miku turned and walked off, the cafeteria tray in tow.

Luka followed her a moment or two with her gaze, just taking in how she walked. It was a surprisingly interesting walk, actually. A bit of sway to it, right in the hips, but nothing exaggerated or overtly attention-grabbing. Luka couldn't say why, but it was a walk that suited the teal-haired girl. Somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she found herself staring nonetheless.

"So that's a surprise," Meiko said, jolting Luka awake.

"Sorry I didn't text, Meiko," Luka said. "I guess I didn't think of it."

"Yeah, I saw that," Meiko replied. "I'm sorry, how did this come about?"

"So, how was your day? Did Hiyama-sensei lose his voice partway through his lecture? I could have sworn he was close to it in my section."

Meiko stared blankly at the other woman. "You don't honestly think I'm going to just drop this, do you?"

"Please?" Luka said, almost begging. "Just while we're here?"

The brunette rolled her eyes. "Fine. Just while we're here. But that doesn't mean I'm letting you off the hook."

"You're being suspicious again. I'll explain everything later, and I _promise_ it'll make sense."

"And after that, could you get my parents to loan me more money? No, maybe you could just fly to Mars and find me a nice rock or two."

"So, how was your day?"

Meiko sighed, admitting defeat. "All right, all right, I get it. Later."

She split her chopsticks and started to talk. Luka listened, only she noticed she was far less fixed on Meiko's voice than she'd been on Miku's.


End file.
